


With You, I Am Home

by cupofdaydream



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, One Shot Collection, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 09:09:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 54
Words: 33,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupofdaydream/pseuds/cupofdaydream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles following Eren and Mikasa's relationship through various scenarios.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ice Skating

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: minor swearing

 

It's the same old routine: she doesn't run quite as fast, and doesn't jump quite as high. It's more for her sake than his, really—she can't bear the idea of leaving him behind, and so she resolves to move forward _with_  him rather than alone, even if the former takes a bit longer than the latter.

So, naturally, when he asks her if she knows how to ice skate, Mikasa replies, "This is my first time skating." And it's the truth, even though she feels steady on her feet—the ice not all that treacherous.

"It's not that hard," Eren says, conveniently slipping and falling to his hands and knees at the same time. "Come on," he offers his hand and  _she_  pulls him up.

She imagines that they're probably quite the sight: she, steady on her feet and her counterpart rather wobbly.

"Are you all right?" she asks when he takes a particularly nasty spill.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he says, waving away her hand. "You just have to make sure that your legs are positioned at the right distance away so that your stance is stable."

She nods politely, and pulls her scarf up a little higher to conceal the smile of amusement tugging at her lips.

Jean lets out a laugh as they pass, and her earlier suspicions are confirmed. "Is this your first time on ice, or something?" he scoffs.

"Fuck you, she's not that bad," Eren spits back.

"Idiot, I was talking about you."

"You wanna go, Kirstein?"

"Yeah. Yeah I do. Let's settle this with a race. From one end of the rink to the other. Connie, call the start."

The two boys make their way to the opposite side of the rink, and it's more than obvious who the loser is. The others gather beside Mikasa at the finish, eager spectators of a comedy rather than a thriller. And when Connie calls the start, they're off—Jean makes a beeline for the finish, and Eren heads straight for the ground. He doesn't get up.

Mikasa flies over the ice, her scarf billowing out like the tail of a kite behind her, she nearly knocks over Jean, his fists raised in triumph, as she rushes past.

"Eren!" she cries as she nears his side, the blades of her skates kicking up ice as she slides into a stop. She can just make out a defeated "that bastard" from underneath the dusting of ice.

Mikasa bends down.

"Sorry," she says, helping him wipe the ice from his clothes, "Are you ok?"

"I've got ice down my shirt," he replies, shivering.

Despite some minor bruising, it's really his pride that's taken the bulk of his fall; he refuses to look her in the eye when she helps him up.

"I thought you said that this was your first time skating?" he asks, still teetering.

"It is," she says. And it's the truth.

He sneezes, and it throws off his balance for a moment.

"You could've gone off on your own, you know. You don't have to stick around for my sake," he says, and she wonders for a moment if she's only ended up putting more pain to his pride. But he only sighs, and curses when he nearly falls again.

"I don't mind being with you," Mikasa says, every so quietly into her scarf.

If he hears her, he gives no indication, hastily turning away, and doing his best to skate away.

"Come on, let's head back. I want to get out of these stupid skates," is all he says.

And maybe it's because it's cold, and he refuses to wear a hat, or because he was just covered in ice, but his ears and cheeks seem to take on a deeper shade of red.


	2. Scarf I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The setting is where the manga currently is (around Chapter 52). For something a bit more angsty, be sure to check out my ongoing story, "For All Who Remain." Thank you, Anonymous, for the request!

 

"Hey," he hears from behind him, and Mikasa takes a seat to his right on the stoop. "You shouldn't be out here. It's cold."

"I can take care of myself," Eren says without looking at her. And though he wishes it were true, he knows that there's more than enough evidence in existence to disprove his words.

He hears her sigh, and rise to her feet, but not before wrapping something around his neck.

"At least wear this," she says. And then she's gone.

At first he thinks it's her scarf—it's roughly the same color, and around the same size—but it's not nearly as worn as hers. "Where the hell did she get this?" he wonders aloud to himself.

And even though the wind gusts a little bit stronger, even though his teeth chatter and his shoulders shake, Eren throws the scarf to the ground, crossing his arms with a "humph," and reasoning that he'd rather feel cold than like a dependent child.

 

**. . . . .**

It's not until the next day, when he bumps into Armin, that anything registers as out of sorts.

"Where'd you get that," Eren says, gesturing to the very loud, orange scarf around Armin's neck.

"Oh, this? Mikasa knit it for me last night," Armin replies.

"Wait, she  _knit_  that?

"Yeah."

"So it's  _handmade_?"

"Well, that is what the word 'knit' implies," Armin says.

Eren curses as he runs out the door.

He makes three rounds around the cabin—he even checks the stable—but the scarf isn't anywhere to be found.

His curse startles the horses when he realizes the childishness of the situation.

 

**. . . . .**

"So what's so special about this scarf?"

"Please, Sasha, could you just keep an eye out for it?"

"I don't know. It's pretty hard to search on an empty stomach…"

"Fine. You can have half of my lunch for a week—don't look at me like that! That's plenty! All right! I'll throw in dinner too, but that's it. If you find it, I'll make it two weeks."

"Three weeks. Seventy-five percent. Plus breakfast."

"Forget it. Deal's off."

 

**. . . . .**

Somewhere in between bargaining with Sasha and nearly getting into another fight with Jean, Eren hits a mental wall: why the hell should he care so much? It's just a stupid scarf! And since when did the maintenance of personal possessions become an indicator of maturity? Hell, if he were a  _real_  man, he would never have cared in the first place.

But when he spots Mikasa out of the corner of his eye, he dives straight into a snow bank. And the fear on his mind at that moment is not his own image, not what she'll think of him, but that she'll be upset—that she'll  _cry_. Strangely enough, it's a real fear that she won't be mad with him, that she won't scold him, because, hell, he  _deserves_  to be scolded.

It is then that Eren realizes that the preservation of his pride isn't his real worry, and that giving up isn't a real option.

 

**. . . . .**

"Maybe if you weren't so damn untidy, you wouldn't be in this mess," Levi says, and even though he's sitting, he's still as intimidating as ever.

"Yes, Sir."

"How dumb can you get? You just left a scarf lying around?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And now you want  _me_  to clean up after  _your_  mistake?"

"Yes, Sir—wait! No! I mean, no, Sir," Eren stutters. "Well, I guess,  _sort of_ , Sir."

"Get the hell out of my sight, Eren."

"Yes, Sir."

 

**. . . . .**

"Hey," he hears her voice from behind him, and this time, when he doesn't respond, spite is not his motive.

He really ought to apologize, or, at the very least  _say_  something, but before he can, she wraps something around his neck. And he can hardly believe it when he sees it: roughly the same color, around the same size, though not nearly as worn as hers.

Eren gapes at her, incredulous.

"It's cold outside," Mikasa says with a small smile and a shrug.


	3. Rumors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt really inspired by a fanart and headcanon I saw on tumblr by user glitchgoat (/post/70526029853), and I also thought that this would work really well as a prequel to "When You Break," another one of my Eremika fics on FF. Updating this collection is really dependent on how many smaller fics (ones under 1k words) I whip out. The third and final chapter of "For All Who Remain," another Eremika fic I have going, should be out soon.

"I saw it happen. Last night," Eren hears across the room. He begins to wash the dishes as quietly as he can. Beside him, Mikasa places the pots back in the cupboard with deliberate care.

"You don't think that they, you know..."

"I can hardly believe it either, but what else would they be doing?"

"Dammit!"

The two boys peer over their shoulders to steal a glance: Connie with stunned curiosity, and Jean with more malice than usual.

Eren returns with what he hopes is an expression of ambiguity, and he and Mikasa leave the room together—just to give them a good show. They share a quick smile upon making it to the safety of the hallway, but they soon remember the reality of the situation, wiping the slates of their faces clean, and parting ways in a cold and solemn silence.

 

**. . . . .**

"You're leaving again?"

"Go back to sleep, Armin," Eren whispers back, his hand on the door knob.

"Look, Eren I know what you're really doing, and the others think—"

"I don't fucking care what the others think, okay Armin?" In urgency, the words come out much harsher than intended, and Eren inwardly curses. But they're not the only two awake. Connie's snoring has ceased, and Jean, usually quite the restless sleeper, has gone stiff.

"Goodnight," Eren says. He leaves without apologizing.

Tiptoeing down the hallway, he holds his breath as he passes the Lance Corporal's room, cringing when he hits a creaky floorboard, he makes it safely past.

When he opens the next door, he's met with the sound of Sasha's thunderous snoring in contrast to Krista's deep, yet light breathing. Ever so quietly, he takes a seat on Mikasa's bed.

"Did I wake you?" he asks when she sits up.

Mikasa nods her head: "But it's all right," she whispers.

He can see the lie in her eyes—the tears that gather in the corners, tears the darkness fails to conceal.

She pulls back the covers like she usually does. "Are you ok?" she studies him with care.

"Yeah," he says, climbing in beside her, "I just couldn't sleep."

That's a lie too.

They always start out this way: on opposite sides of the bed, facing opposite ways, because sometimes that's enough to get them through the night. Simply being in each other's company is sometimes all it takes to console their troubles and soothe their minds. Other times, it takes something more.

Her hand brushes against his arm. "Eren?" she says, her voice wavering.

Turning, he wraps her in his arms, and pulls her into his chest; her hands circle around his waist, her shoulders shaking and her breath coming out in hiccups.

"You'll wake the others," he warns, but even so, he holds her closer, his fingers tangling with the hair at the nape of her neck.

The others. Jean and Connie. In their minds, he's validated every one of their claims. Though really, what they say and think is the least of his worries. He'll take their stares of shock, and maybe even horror, over their looks of pity any day.

There is, at least, some small dignity preserved in the rumours that surround them. It gives them room to breathe within the cramped walls of the cabin which threaten to suffocate them if the veil of whispers were ever to be torn and reality revealed.

For if it helps to conceal the truth, if it hides the tears dripping off her chin from view, let them gossip, let their minds race to scandal, let them think that she pulls her scarf to her face to cover the condemning marks that supposedly stain her skin. So be it. It is a small price to pay.

Let them talk.

While it is the past that plagues her thoughts—the two parents lost to the blade of the knife, a second home and future crushed in The Fall—it is the future that troubles him most. He fears what lies await in dreams, what the nightmares will foretell—a transformation he cannot return from, the blood on his hands of faces he once knew, the evanescence of consciousness entirely—he's seen it many times before. And though each time they crawl beneath the sheets it's not to lose themselves in the throes of passion, but to cry like the helpless children that they really are, being with her assures him that he has a heart. A beating, human heart.

She's still crying. Her hand to her mouth, she tries to stifle her sobbing, and all Eren can do is pull her tighter, and pray that the tears in his own eyes don't fall.

It's on the worst of nights like this one, when he wipes the tears that roll down her cheeks, that he's reminded of how the cruelty of the world corrupts all that is beautiful, how it steals the breath from all that lives.

And sometimes he wonders if kissing her would stop the tears from falling, because sometimes holding her in his arms isn't enough. But he never summons the courage to find out. Never summons the courage to confirm the rumors.

In the end, it would be best for talk to remain talk.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, just a reminder that you can PM or leave me a prompt in the reviews any time. I can't promise that I'll get to it or do it (if it's extremely OOC I might not be able to manage it), but I'll do my best. Thanks for reading!


	4. Guilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: spoilers for manga chapters 49-51 (for those of you who are solely anime watchers), recollection of character death, mention of injury
> 
> A/N: Hey there, ReviewRequest!Nonnie, hopefully this was sort of what you were looking for? I think I might've accidentally made it a bit more angsty than you may have wanted, though I tried to turn it around a bit... Also, symptoms of rib injury include pain upon breathing in some cases.

She says that she's alright, but she's tense against his back as they ride, telltale winces and gasps slipping past her lips when they hit a particularly rough patch.

Eren calls back at one point: "How's your breathing?"

For a while, wheezing is all that answers him, the sound as alarming as any thundering footsteps, as chilling as any scream.

"Okay," Mikasa finally manages.

One of her hands gives the fabric of his shirt a reassuring squeeze, and Eren tells himself that it's the attention to the reigns, and not the guilt, that keeps him from squeezing her hand back, because this isn't right.

He had often dreamed of the day when he wouldn't need her to save him. When  _he'd_  save  _her_.

But there's no satisfaction in this. There's no sense of triumph in carrying her this way.

For even though he'd been the one to save them this time, there's that scene that keeps replaying before his eyes: where she'd thrown herself over him, that Cheshire grin looming overhead. And Hannes. _Hannes_. Both of them so ready to die for his sake, and one of them he wasn't so ready to say goodbye to.

He wonders, at what point did he become such burden? And it's when he looks around at the few who remain around him, that he realizes that he's witnessed this scene all his life-his mother telling him to flee, the recapture of Trost, the expedition beyond the walls, Hannes-he's always been a burden.

Her whisper is soft against the wind, and he feels rather than hears it: "Don't cry," she pleads, "Please, don't cry. Don't blame yourself."

The tears only fall faster.

"Don't speak," he says back, the tiny rivulets of water getting swept away on the wind off his face, "You'll just hurt yourself."

And so they ride on in silence.

**. . . . .**

It's dark by the time they reach the top of the wall. Eren slides off the horse with care, placing her grip from his waist to the saddle momentarily as he dismounts.

"Can you lean back?" he asks after, holding his arms out for her.

She nods her head, and she does: eyes closed and brow slightly furrowed.

Taking the sight of her in, he holds his breath.

And he knows it's because she's injured, but the way she's settled in his arms—silent, and unmoving—it's eerie. He once saw a man carry his new bride away in his arms like this. But he's also seen men and women carry broken comrades just like this too.

Fear distorts her image in his hands; her silhouette becomes a body of the past, and the past becomes the foretelling of a present yet to come.

His ears strain for the soft sound of her breathing, his fingers ache for the heat of her skin on his as he lays her down. Something,  _anything_ , to break this trance, this horrible vision of the future that he's caught himself in.

Then he hears it: "Eren," she says, "I'm alright."

And it is the sound of her voice that shatters the illusion fear has woven in front of his eyes. It is her gaze, the light behind her eyes, that reminds him of his will to fight for a brighter day, to strive to shoulder his own weight, to prevent his nightmare from becoming reality. The idea of a future without her is unbearable. He will not let such a thing come to pass.

"I'm sorry," he says back. And it is both an apology and a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: As you can see, I did break this one up into two parts that both, for the most part, could've stood on their own; however, I felt that the transition of Eren's state of mind—how his guilt and fear ultimately strengthened his resolve—was important to show.
> 
> Feel free to leave requests for me here through review or PM, or on tumblr! And as always, thank you for reading.


	5. Flower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Perhaps a Pt. II of Lost? My idea is the permanence of her scarf being lost. Mikasa slowly grows without it, but relies on Eren more to have her neck wrapped by his arms. This would build up some tension in their relationship, could lead to some love comedic scenarios, and can even bring the two closer than ever." —hella-kun
> 
> A/N: Sorry about the indecisiveness. Hopefully this fulfilled at least a little bit of what you had in mind? Anyways, I go into greater detail about the thought I put into this little drabble in the author's notes at the end.
> 
> Follows 5. Lost

Later, she'll blame the wind for stealing the words off her lips. She'll say that she got caught up in the scene before them: the bubbling creek, the lush green grass below them as they sit side to side, almost shoulder to shoulder, the water buckets forgotten at their backs, the world so ethereal that it swept away her sense of reality and all reason along with the current. But here, in the moment, the three words roll of her tongue in consequence of nothing else but her own actions. Three little words. Three little, one-syllable words.

Eren doesn't say anything back, freezing only for a moment before going back to fiddling with the blade of grass between his fingertips.

And she'd be lying if she said that she weren't at least a little hurt by his lack of response, but she doesn't say it to hear it back. She says it so that he knows.

Because he has to know. He  _must_  know. For in this world where people seem to vanish in the blink of an eye, she'd like to speak those three words aloud—just once—before she's swept away by fate.

"I keep having these nightmares..." Mikasa trails off in a quiet voice, speaking as if she can rationalize what she feels with words, she's haunted by the image of him disappearing in front of her, a flash of red hanging over his shoulders. Her fingers trail across her bare neck, remembering the days when a scarf used to lay there, and dreading the day when his arms will cease to take its place. It's an emptiness she doesn't like to think about. "What would I have if I ever lost you?" she wonders out loud.

Then she hears it: the murmur of his voice as he echoes her words. And when he turns to her, she at first mistakes his sternness in his expression and posture for anger.

"You don't need me," he says plainly, "What would you have without me? Without me the rivers still flow, and the rain still falls. Without me, the flowers still bloom." With that, he opens up his hand, a single daisy chain link resting in his palm. "You have the world. You always have," and taking her hand, he slips it on her forefinger.

Her hand still in his, he leans towards her before she has any time to process what's just happened, resting his forehead against her own.

"I love you, too," he murmurs. His eyes are clenched tight, as if he were deep in thought, and when his lips touch hers, it's with unexpected tenderness. But then his eyes flicker open, pink tinting his cheeks as he's brought back to reality. His gaze burns once more, the tender moment gone. "But don't think for one second that the value of your life starts and ends with me."

He rises without another word, grabbing the buckets behind them and heading down to the river.

Brow furrowed and lips pressed into a line, Mikasa observes the flower around her finger. His final words ringing in her ears, her eyes are transfixed on the empty spot of a missing petal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This particular drabble was meant to answer Mikasa's last question in Lost, and in a way sort of sets in motion Mikasa realizing that she cannot let her attachment to Eren turn into a dependency, a dependency that only worsened with the loss of her scarf. There's also some symbolism with the flower and the missing petal, furthering the overall message, which I quite like. 
> 
> Feel free to message me prompts here through the reviews or on tumblr. Thanks.


	6. Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Request: "Could you write something about a sick Mikasa and Eren very worried?" —mimii
> 
> A/N: Sorry this took a bit longer than usual—things have been a bit busier around here. I'm also on a huge Atonement hype right now, and it definitely shows. Thanks for the request!

Three blankets piled high on top of her, and yet she still shivers.

Putting a damp cloth to her brow, Eren trails a knuckle across a flushed cheek. Her skin burns hot, and it evokes images of fifteen-meter corpses steaming in the streets.

Mikasa mutters in her sleep, incoherent nothings slipping out on labored breath as she tosses and turns beneath the sheets. And the fever pulls her far away, whisking her back in time: "Mother, Father," he makes out from her incomprehensible whispers, "Don't go. Don't leave."

He laces his fingers with hers, casting a rope out into open waters for her to grab ahold of before she's swept away in the sea of the fever and the murky visions of the past. Where she is, he cannot follow, wandering about in the depths of her own mind, she is lost to everyone but herself.

"Come back," Eren whispers against the skin of her hand, "Come back to me."

Tentatively, he presses his lips to her burning skin.

"Come back."

 


	7. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized I forgot to post this one! I'm so sorry! Anyways, this is the prequel to "5. Flower."

Eren knocks at the door, a plate of food in his hand, turning the doorknob regardless of whether or not she gives her permission to enter.

He finds her lying there, alone in her room, fingers trailing across her bare neck; she's refused to speak to anyone, and refused to eat, confining herself to solitude for the past couple of days.

"Someone's got to do it," they had said, eyeing him down. He hadn't responded, pretending not to have heard, and the extra serving of food on his plate went unnoticed.

Setting the dinner on the night table, she's unresponsive when he takes a seat at the edge of her bed.

"Does this mean that I get to shove bread down  _your_  throat this time?"

His quip goes unappreciated.

"C'mon, Mikasa," Eren sighs, nudging her with his arm, "you've got to eat."

There's a pause, and then a rustle of the blankets and the creak of the bed springs as she sits up and slides over next to him. She stares at the utensils in her hands, and the plate on her lap, almost as if unsure of what to do with them, and when she takes a bite, she chews as if she has rocks between her teeth rather than food, her jaw moving idely slow.

Now that she's up properly, he can see the toll of the past few days: her eyes are swollen, the bend in her usually perfect posture, every once and a while, her fingers play across her neck, aching for the scarf that used to hang there.

He's been downcast for a bit too. As much as he hates to admit it, he'd formed a sentimental bond with the image of it wrapped around her, he'd grown used to the sight of her and a flash of red. He's over it now, though. It is, after all, just a scarf. In truth, it's much harder to see her in such a state.

Tearing the bread, it slips from her fingers and falls, rolling past her feet. She makes no move to pick it up, staring at it with a distant gaze.

Eren sighs, reaching down to grab it in her stead, and when he looks to her again, he catches the sight of her quivering lip, seeing past her attempt to conceal a sniffle as clearing her throat.

"We'll find it," he says, placing the bread on her plate again.

Little droplets fall to her lap. The light drizzle before the rain.

He almost doesn't expect her to answer, but then Mikasa says back: "We've looked everywhere!" And the floodgates open.

Her shoulders shake, and she covers her mouth with a hand to muffle the sobbing, the occasional hiccup escaping, much to her own embarrassment.

Eren takes the plate from her lap, setting it once more on the nightstand, and he takes the utensils still clenched in her grip. His hand hesitantly reach up to touch her shoulder, but his fingers curl back before they meet her, detouring to his back pocket to offer her a handkerchief instead. He's never been one to comfort.

Fingers curling round the cloth, she brings it to her chest rather than using it to wipe her tears, and then she lays across the bed once more.

"It'd be easy to get a new one," Eren says.

"That's not the point."

His chest pangs. For besides from the three of them—Mikasa, Armin, and him—that scarf really was one of the few things tethering them back to their lost days. But he shakes the thought, adamant not to be corrupted by such wistful feelings. After all, he can't hope to move forwards if he anchors himself to the past.

"Don't be stupid. It's just a scarf," Eren scoffs. "Besides," he continues, "you've got me." And then he lays down too, his arms pulling her into his chest. "I can wrap my arms around you better than any scarf ever could," he mumbles.

She's hesitant at first, but she circles her arms around him too. Her sobs decrescendo into silence, the rivers trailing down her cheeks finally drying, but something still doesn't sit quite right. He's got her held close, and yet she still feels so far away.

When she speaks, it's so quiet, he can barely hear her: "But what will I do if I ever lose you?"

And to that, he has no answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this absolutely broke me--the idea of Mikasa losing her scarf just makes me so inconsolably sad. Oh gosh, can we please just agree that her scarf turns up like a week later? Thank you, hella-kun for the request!


	8. Warmth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EM Week 2013: Prompt 4
> 
> A/N: This was refreshing to write—I haven't written something in this sort of style in quite a while. I do have 2 or 3 more prompts in progress at the moment, but because of studies, I may not get them up until after Eremika Week 2014 is over. Thanks for reading!

For her, love has always been this way: her father's stew, simmering atop the stove in the wintertime, her mother tucking her in at night, making sure the blanket covered each of her toes, and the soft crackle of the fire as she drifted off to sleep, sandwiched between her parents in front of its flame.

On that day, when the hearth of her home smothered, and she lay shivering on an unfamiliar, hardwood floor, she thought love lost for good. Sorrow is cold. Loneliness a chill on the howling wind. And there she was, left to brave the storm alone.

But then he came, a spark burning behind his eyes, and a fire roaring in his words; there was warmth in her world once more, and a scarf around her neck to remind her that it would never leave.

He's her summer boy—everything about him bright and warm. They share a brew of steaming coffee in the mornings, and become each other's heater when the furnace fails them at night. He's her sweater in the autumn, and her umbrella in the spring, her shelter from the rain and cold.

Love is warm. That much she's decided. It's burning nights of passion, flushed cheeks and a fluttering heart, the hearth of home alight no matter where they are as long as they're together.

For Mikasa Ackerman—though she's known loss and despair, though death is not an unfamiliar face—love has always been this way; and though time has altered its giver, stolen her father's soup from off the table and her mother from her side, its nature has endured. Love is warm. Home is love. And he is home.


	9. Merciless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EM Week 2013: Prompt 7—Flower
> 
> A/N: Here's a very very late Eremika Week prompt. I still have one or two more coming.

She never thought it possible to fall in love in a place like this. Not here. Not now. Not ever. But it happened all the same.

For who has the time to love—to brush a knuckle against a defined jaw, to get lost in eyes that shimmer turquoise and kiss rough lips—while the world breaks and shatters? No one. Time is something that evades them all.

But tragedy is a peculiar thing. And Mikasa thinks that maybe it's some cruel trick of life: that tragedy only makes people love harder, and fall faster, just so that it can rip it away once they've found it. Why here? Why now? How could a feeling like this grow from this crimson stained earth?

Because love is like a flower blooming in the ruins of disaster. No matter how the ashen gray sky seems to suffocate their lungs and muffle their screams, no matter how crimson and broken dreams litter the ground, life still breaks through the surface of the soil, the tiny sapling prevails.

Mikasa says the words—three tiny little words—over, and over, and over, and over: a desperate prayer as she holds him in her arms. And then his finger trails down her cheek.

"Why are you crying?" Eren asks, and their embrace grows tighter; his whisper is almost inaudible in the echo of those three tiny little words that hang heavy in the air. But he knows. He  _must_  know.

Because this feeling between them—the way they kiss, they way they touch, they way their names are like a summer day the way they leave their tongues—is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because they've had the chance to love and be loved in this short lifetime of theirs, and a curse because tragedy is the only way this dream can ever end. For in this world of theirs, two has a nasty habit of becoming one.

Still locked in their embrace, they sit in silence, soft breath in the quiet air, and two heartbeats if she listens hard enough. Three tiny little words. They meant joy, once.

And when he speaks those three tiny little words back, voice quiet and broken, Mikasa cannot control the sadness from overtaking the joy in her heart. Such a strange place, this world is. Merciless and beautiful in every sense of the phrase.


	10. Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Anon
> 
> A/N: Sorry this took so long! School and track have not been kind to my schedule. Thanks for the requests, and thank you so much for reading and reviewing.
> 
> Warnings: self-destructive thoughts

The days have long past when monsters dwelled beyond the walls, underneath beds, and lurked in dark corners, when their presence could be banished with a simple flicker of light. It's with time that the monsters began to creep inwards, finding the deepest and darkest desires of his heart and festering there. No simple flicker of light can cast out these demons. Not when they're tethered to his soul.

It's what he doesn't remember that scares him most—the moments when wrath overwhelms conscious thought, when his mind seems to abandon his body. It is with trembling fingers that Eren touches the old gash that runs across her right cheek. Like that. He doesn't remember doing that.

His resolve in himself is beginning to waver. For while there was hope in his towering figure—a chance for a future, a way to fight back—something lurks within him that cannot distinguish between right and wrong, ally and enemy. His strength has become his weakness. He's supposed to harness this beast, not become it.

Eradicate the titans. Every last one. It's only a matter of time before his humanity is consumed, and he can feel himself slipping away bit by bit to this monster within—at what point will he cease to be himself?

He runs his fingers along the familiar horizontal path at the nape of his neck, and he reasons that although two blades are rather unlike a light, they'd still suffice in getting the job done.

But then he feels her hand on his, diverting him from his lateral trail of destruction; she reminds his fingers, instead, of their ten centimeters by one meter vertical counterpart, and her touch tries to remind  _him_  that he can be saved, that underneath searing flesh he is human, an entirely separate entity from this physical manifestation of his own rage and pain.

"Despite everything," Mikasa whispers, kissing each of his knuckles, "you are, and always will be, human."

She leaves. She let's him breathe, and she let's him think, because there's only so much a few words and a kiss can do.

Human. In his own experience, he has found that the monsters that are the most human, are the monsters that are the most fearsome.

And when Eren stretches out his hand, he can still feel her lips on his skin.


	11. Breeze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt requested by Anonymous: Lost
> 
> A/N: This turned very Shiganshina centric, and I can't say that I have any regrets (though I'm not sure that this quite does what I wanted it to), but I am sorry, Anon, if this wasn't exactly what you had in mind.

Lying here like this—the field of grass at their backs, and the limitless sky above—it's easy to forget that they're trapped behind towering walls, easy to forget that the clouds aren't just out of reach.

Armin reads the best out of three of them, and so he is the one to recite the descriptions of the mountains and the deserts, creating rock and sand out of the inky hieroglyphics on the tattered parchment. And where Eren's literacy lacks, his imaginativeness makes up for tenfold, and it is the spoken rather than the written word that serves as his foundation for his stories, and the passing clouds become the illustrations for his visions. Together the two boys weave tales of the world outside to which Mikasa is content to listen.

The hero is ever-changing: cartographer, explorer, escaped convict, abandoned Survey Corps member taken for dead, even the name is seldom the same.

This time, it's the escaped convict—wrongly accused and imprisoned,  _of course_ —trekking through a forest of eternal rain. Low on ammo, one last bullet in his revolver, to be exact, it's with a spear fashioned out of the elements that he takes out a wild boar, which was originally a camel until Armin reminded Eren that those were only found in deserts.

Mikasa listens as the two boys guide their hero to the river that falls from the cliffs like thunder, as they have him jump canyons and conquer mountains. White, wispy clouds become towering rock formations, and as they float away on the soft breeze, ever so slowly out of sight, the rock formations dissipate back into their original, cottony forms.

"Hey, Mikasa," it's Armin's voice that breaks her from her reverie.

"Where to next?" Eren asks.

"Huh?"

"Where to next? We've been picking the destinations up until now. It's your turn."

"Oh."

It's a harder decision than she thought it would be. The world is so big, and they've visited so much, and it feels as if she has too many choices, and yet too little. They could always revisit a place: one of the islands, or the grassland with the striped horses and the deer with trees for necks—what was it called again? The savannah?—and there were always the sea caves. But she aches to make full use of her turn, to explore something different and new.

And when the revelation hits her, it's no place new, or all that unique in comparison to everything else Armin's book has to offer, but she has confidence in her choice all the same.

"Home," she says. "He heads home next."

She's met with two bewildered stares.

" _Home_?"

Mikasa nods.

"But what's to do  _there_?"

Her answer is automatic. "His mother has an apple pie waiting." It takes a moment for her own words to sink in, and when they do, a lump catches in her throat.

By the way Eren and Armin's lips are set in a straight line, it seems that an understanding has hit home.

"He got tired of traveling alone," she adds before lying back down. And there's the light ruffle of grass as the other two join her in sky gazing.

The cloud lazily passing by is circular in nature, the crust appearing crisp despite its less than crisp medium. There's a hint of cinnamon on the breeze. She did always love her mother's apple pie.

"Would you ever do it?" says Armin, "Leave the walls, I mean."

"I plan on it," Eren replies—his voice full of conviction.

He's always been a dreamer. He lives for the future, and sleeps for tomorrow. Like a cloud he's impossible to tie down, so eager to drift away. So very eager to leave them behind.

It's Armin who speaks her mind for her: "Will you miss us?"

Eren's brow crinkles as he processes the question, and his expression only grows sterner as comprehension settles in.

"You guys are coming with me," he says. Because they should know. It's always been that way.

Mikasa's heart flutters like the passing butterfly riding the breeze. And then she joins hands with the boys on either side of her

"Let's get lost in this world," he says aloud, and he flashes that winning grin. "The three of us. Together."

Three heroes off to explore the world. Now that's a story she'd be more than content to listen to—more than eager to create.

 


	12. Whispers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's the night before Eren, Mikasa, and Armin is to attend the academy; Everyone is asleep except for one scarf-clad girl, sharing the same room as her savior, and she has some words to get off her chest." —oncomingstorm65 (tumblr)
> 
> A/N: Thank you for the request!

They don't belong here—none of them do. Not her, not Armin, not Eren, not any of these other kids who've just turned twelve. But Mikasa supposes that this is the nature of war: what is necessary is not always right, and what doesn't belong becomes the norm.

Her mind is racing, and sleep is evasive, a problem all the more frustrating because they're supposed to ship out at five for the academy, and the hour is approaching fast. There's row upon row of sleeping forms lining the floor, soft breath filling the nighttime air along with the occasional shuffle from the restless sleepers, and snoring from the few individuals that do.

A restless mind is caused by a restless heart—at least, that's what her mother used to say—and troubles are best set free through art or conversation if the situation allows.

Mikasa rolls over to the left, facing Eren's sleeping form beside her. He's still wearing his Training Corps jacket that they received at registration.

He snapped at her earlier that day. He told her that if she didn't want to join, she shouldn't just for his sake. He didn't need her to take care of him.

Even now, his words still ring in her ears. Maybe they're the cause of her restlessness tonight. Intrusive little thoughts, their noise chasing away sleep.

And if she could, if she didn't need to preserve the quiet in this room of slumber, if she possessed the courage, she'd ask him for an explanation to why he's always so eager to leave her behind, and she'd tell him why she's so very eager to stay by his side. She'd tell him that they don't belong here, but the three of them—they belong together. And that the latter takes precedence over the first.

But words don't come easily. Not anymore.

"You're all I have left," she whispers ever so softly, taking his hand in her own. "And where you go, I will follow."

His soft, steady breath is all that answers.


	13. Restraint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Eremika Week 2014—Prompt 1: First Time (very, very, very late)
> 
> Warnings: sexual content, swearing
> 
> A/N: I have this headcanon that Eren and Mikasa take their time in exploring the rougher aspects of their physical relationship, and through their experiences they learn the importance of communication. Apologies for being inactive for a few weeks!
> 
> Also, I did amp up the rating to M, all things considering.

They're new at this. They still fumble with buttons and clasps, still bump noses and wipe the saliva off of their chins after a particularly messy kiss, a bashful shade of pink tinting their heated cheeks.

And Eren wonders if he'll ever get used to it. He wonders if he'll ever get used to the electricity of her touch, if her soft sighs will ever cease to bore him, if their tumbles in the sheets will ever take on a routine monotony—he hopes it never comes to that.

But maybe, just maybe, they could lose their caution—get a little reckless, once in a while. He's so tired of touching like they're made of glass, like they'll shatter if one of them kisses too hard.

So, not quite forcefully, he guides her backwards so that she's seated at the edge of the desk, her knees on either side of his hips. Mikasa catches his eye in between kisses, eyebrows arched behind black bangs, but she doesn't say anything, only tilting his chin upwards to press her lips delicately to his.

Her fingers tug at his shirt, pulling it over his head and broad shoulders, and that shiver of anticipation that he always gets when he's undoing the buttons of her shirt runs through his upper body and torso.

They're both lacking in their usual patience, and he only makes it halfway through the buttons before she's urging him up for another kiss; Eren suffices for sliding her arms out the sleeves, and letting the half buttoned shirt fall at her waist.

His confidence only grows as her hands trail up and down his chest, and he places a kiss on the tops of each of her breasts before sliding the straps off her shoulders, and reaching for the clasp at her back.

"Mikasa?" he just barely manages with the sensation of her lips at the curve where his neck meets his shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"Don't...don't hold back."

Her hands and kisses come to a stop, and after what feels like too long of a moment she finally whispers back: "Okay."

And then he feels her teeth nipping at his shoulder. Eren takes in a sharp inhalation of breath, and it leaves his lungs—before he can stop himself—as a breathy moan.

Misjudging his reaction, Mikasa immediately pulls away, placing lithe fingers to the spot where her teeth just grazed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" she whispers, peppering his skin with apologetic kisses. "Are you hurt?"

He can feel his face burning, and he can't find it within himself to meet her gaze. "I'm fine," he shifts in their embrace, "That just...felt really good."

Realization comes in the form of light pink blooming across her cheeks.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The tip of her nose twitches, a prelude to a smile he knows is sure to mock him; he places a kiss there, in hopes of distracting her and sparing his dignity. And they start again, parted lips to parted lips, just as they began. This part, they know: Mikasa leans backward, and Eren leans forward, her hips rise upwards, and his hands, on the waistband of her skirt, pull downward. In a flash of fabric, her long, muscular legs are revealed, and in another shuffle of belt buckles and waistbands, his taut legs join her own.

His fingers reach down to stroke her center for a brief moment, and she hums, her teeth grazing his bottom lip in retaliation. And with each kiss, and with each shuddering sigh, they grow more fervent, more unrestrained. There's a certain thrill in all this, a different sort of electricity to their rougher touches—it's addictive.

At one point, her hands travel up his spine and settle on the nape of his neck where her sharp nails carve her pleasure into his skin, making him flinch—the sensation reminding him all too much of twin blades on their lethal horizontal path. Not there, he says as he jerks his head away, and she pulls her hands back, looking so guilt-ridden with herself that it takes a few moments of coaxing and reassuring to ease them both. You didn't know, you didn't know, he whispers between kisses to her lips, I'm fine, I'm fine. But they move past the incident soon enough, her nails careful to avoid the smooth nape of his neck.

As his mouth finds her breast, her hand goes up behind her to anchor herself to the hutch of the desk behind her, the other tangling in his brown hair. Her breath, coming out in warm puffs, and this new position—with her, pinned, arms and legs spread, like a butterfly under glass, and him, standing before her, an admirer completely and utterly lost in every sight, every scent, every sound that is her—sends his hips rocking back and forth in anticipation, and adds an almost unfamiliar hunger and desperation to the urge of ridding them of their final undergarments, and moving with and against her—it's a thrilling yet unnerving sensation.

He suckles and laps at the soft skin of her chest, lips following the faint lines from the maneuver gear straps that run across her torso, and then he takes an alert nipple between his teeth, and touches his tongue to the tip. Her fingers carve into his scalp, and her head arches back, bringing her closer to him. And then, when he drops his head down to her navel, when Eren drags his tongue up, up the center of her torso, and through the valley of her breasts until he reaches her lips, he hears it.

"Eren."

The sound nearly drives his hips into the edge of the desk. He never knew that his name, a moan on her lips, could have such an effect. And before he has to chance to ground himself, she sends him higher, her hand reaching down and taking him in her grasp.

"Fuck," he whispers, when she gives a tentative tug. His eyes flutter closed as her fingers trail up and down his skin, and the curve of his neck finds the nape of hers, one of his hands reaching up to steady himself on the hutch of the desk.

He loses himself to a daze after that. Eren closes his eyes, and it becomes only her hand around him, beckoning him closer and closer, like the tides dragging the waves from the sand. His hips move in that same motion: lingering and receding, a growing tension building in their back and forth movement.

And he feels it coming, a low rumble out at sea, a wave roaring back towards land, threatening to crash upon the shore; it takes all he has to pull himself from its current.

"Mikasa," he breathes, turning his head to her ear, "Not this way," he says. "I don't want to finish this way."

She responds with a searing kiss to his mouth, her lips bruising his. "I'm ready," she says back.

And so he shimmies his boxers all the way off, and pulls her underwear down her legs, and when they come together, he leans forward with a groan, resting his forehead to her chest, and her head tips back against the hutch of the desk, brow furrowed and lips parted in the most beautiful of ways.

Time seems to stop. There is only him, and only her, racing hearts and labored breath, the rest of their bodies stuck at a stand still save for his quivering ass and thighs.

"Eren?" Mikasa whispers, her voice shaking.

"Yeah?"

"Don't hold back," she echoes.

Eren kisses her. Hands framing her face, he kisses her, and together they take a step forward, movements like waves as they swell and recede with one another.

And time starts again.


	14. Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Eremika Fluff Week 2014—Prompt 1: Kiss
> 
> A/N: So you may or may not have noticed, but I usually write angst. Anyways, here's me doing my best to exercise my fluff muscle. Happy Eremika Fluff Week 2014! Also, thank you all so much for your support, it means more than words could convey.
> 
> Takes place sometime after the liberation of the walls.

He's dreamt about this. Moonlight sparkling in her eyes, the summer grass brushing against their calves as they skip out into the open field, the milky twilight high above. The tree that they sat under when they were children still stands tall, and they sway to the melody of the universe under its arms, the stars waltzing through the cosmos, and the fireflies to the serenade of the crickets back on earth.

And they're laughing again, smiling again, because in this moment they're so incredibly free, no longer tethered by the nightmares of the past, but soaring, higher and higher, pulled along by the blinding future ahead of them.

He's dreamt about this. Kissing her, his hands tangled in the red of her scarf, in the darkened field of flowers, the silver moon shining amidst the stars, because in the end, they've saved home in more ways than one. He's dreamt about this. This ethereal image always just outside his grasp, a reverie too far off, too fantastical to ever achieve, like chasing after shooting stars that sweep across the canvas of black before disappearing into the interminable void. And yet when his lips meet the corner of her smile, he knows that this is real.


	15. Ripples

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Eremika Fluff Week 2014—Prompt 3: Bubble Bath
> 
> A/N: sort of altered the prompt to suit my needs. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!
> 
> Warnings: swearing, suggestive themes

It doesn't mean a thing—really, it doesn't. They're simply acting on the basis of necessity.

They'd been traveling for five days, and were still another three from the rendezvous point when Eren complained about the smell of the horses, and when Mikasa, with one regrettable whiff to her underarm, assured him that the horses were not the ones at fault.

Now they stand—each of them with a bundle of fresh clothes and towel in hand—before a weeping willow on the bank of a creek, its thick, long tresses trailing in the water.

"You can take the inside," Eren says, chin arched towards the willow.

"Okay."

At the bank, they set down their change of clothes, and without much thought or warning, Eren pulls his shirt over his head, and Mikasa flushes pink, turning away just a little too late, catching a glimpse of his taut chest and torso, his pants hung low on his hips. Her protest is meek when his thumbs begin to hook onto his waistband.

"Right. Sorry." Eren says, remembering where they are and what he's doing, and he turns away a tad too quickly. "You can go ahead. I won't look. I promise."

And so they stand back-to-back, acutely aware of the rustling of clothing as it falls to the ground, of breaths drawn deeper and quicker. He finishes much faster than she does, and Mikasa takes a deep breath before unclasping her bra and slipping out of her underwear, setting them both atop the neat pile of her dirtied, folded clothes; fully exposed, she shivers, her arms instinctively shielding her modesty, and she has to scold herself when her mind wanders to the stark naked figure a mere three meters away, thankful that he can't see her blushing, though a little worried that he might hear the violent thumping of her heart.

Eren clears his throat: "Are you…"

"Yeah."

"Okay, um, you go ahead and get in first, and just call me when it's safe to turn around."

"Alright."

Mikasa creeps to the edge of the creek. Sticking a toe in, she hisses at the touch of the water's cool bite.

"What was that?! Are you ok?!"

"Don't look!"

"Sorry! Sorry! I didn't see anything! Is everything alright?"

"Yeah. It's just...the water's cold."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

With a shudder, she takes a step in, slowing wading into the waters shrouded by the willow tree's curtain; soap in hand, she moves until she's certain her figure is shielded by the trunk of the willow and the overhanging foliage. Turning to call out to Eren, she comes to realize that the back strands of leaves conceal very little, for she's met with Eren's strikingly bare body. Still faced away, he stands tall, his back tanned, and his shoulders and ass noticeably well toned. Cheeks on fire, Mikasa whips back around.

"You can come in now," and she wonders if he can hear the guilty tremble in her voice, because accident or not, she's violated their trust.

But the extra weight on her conscience is quickly forgotten. There's a large splash followed by an even louder curse concerning the temperature of the water, and a small smile tugs at her lips.

And when Eren swears again, it's with more elation: "Holy shit! Look at these tiny fish! Mikasa! Have you seen them? Here, I'll chase them over."

There's more splashing and swearing, as Eren sloshes about on the other side of the curtain of leaves, and then a triumphant cry when a small group of fish dart into her dome, and he nearly crashes through the green.

Mikasa yelps. "Eren! Not so close!"

"Sorry! Sorry!"

After that, she does her best to get on with her bath. She elevates her leg on a root that protrudes from the bank, taking the soap and lathering it between her hands, her fingers trailing up and down her calves and thighs, working the suds into her hair, across her chest and arms. And from what she can make out from her side, he hasn't started: skipping rocks, chasing fish, at one point he calls out that he's found a frog, and then he chases after that too—he's stark naked and he's done everything  _but_  bathe.

"Eren, quit fooling around."

"Aw, come on, Mikasa."

"Let's go, we don't have all day."

He sighs. "I left my soap in the bags. I'm getting out. Don't look."

Mikasa averts her eyes from the open side of the willow, shielding herself against its trunk until she hears him come wading back. He comes closer and closer until he's just outside the weeping willow's tresses.

"You wouldn't have happened to pack an extra bar of soap, would you?" he asks so softly she almost doesn't hear him.

"I didn't," she says back.

A silence ensues. Looking down at the soap clutched to her breast, she can't comprehend why he hesitates in asking. It's a simple question, after all. Hardly worth getting embarrassed over. And yet  _she's_  embarrassed by the mere  _prospect_  of him asking!

She makes her way to the willow's boundary, the ripples circling round her thighs, rolling forward with each step, until her wake tumbles into his miniature waves from the other side. "Don't peek," she says, voice wavering, as she hugs one hand to her chest while the other with the bar of soap parts through the green tresses and into the light outside. "Here."

He says a quiet thank you in return, and his hand reaches through the vine, his calloused fingers lingering on her wrist for a moment too long before returning back behind the curtain of leaves, and Mikasa's heart flutters and her face grows hot. So they're sharing soap, she tells herself. So what? What does it matter?

She's naked, exposed, vulnerable—and so is he, not a meter away. And she tries, really, she does, to evade the thoughts that come in tow with such knowledge, but she can't escape; and the more she tries not to think of it, the stronger the thoughts persist. What would happen if she were to brave the one meter distance between him and herself? What would come if she were to part the tresses of the weeping willow, and step into the sunshine outside?

Sometimes, at night, she imagines what it'd be like to kiss him. She wonders what it'd be like to have his hands on the small of her back, to taste his skin, to feel his coarse lips on her own, on her neck, on the soft skin of her stomach just below her navel, and even lower. And as the heat from her cheeks travels to her belly, she is overwrought with shame. Yet surely, she can't be alone in this. Surely, he feels it too.

Or perhaps this sensation, this feeling, is as natural and impartial as this creek, flowing indiscriminately wherever there is room to flow, no sentimentality, no real rhyme or reason, just nature running its course. Yes, that must be it. This feeling in the pit of her stomach—it doesn't mean a thing. Surely it can't. And so Mikasa shrinks away from the curtain of green, leaving the rippling surface of the water behind.

**. . . . .**

After they wash and dress, they finish packing away their things, preparing to set off on the road again.

"Ready?" Mikasa says, saddlebags packed and knapsack slung over her shoulder.

Regarding her with an unreadable gaze, Eren's hand reaches up, fingers gliding down a strand of hair, a skinny, green leaf in his palm. He hands it to her.

"Ready." he says back.

They set off. And Mikasa struggles to convince herself that this leaf in her hand doesn't mean a thing.

 


	16. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Eremika Fluff Week 2014—Prompt 4: Under the Stars

Usually it's the other way around. She'll settle at his side without a word, a delicate hand on his shoulder announcing her presence. But not tonight. Tonight there's not a cloud in the sky, the crickets' chirp their summer song, and he is the one to take a seat beside her, fingers incidentally grazing her arm as they find the grass.

They sit in comfortable silence, the sounds of the night speaking all that needs to be spoken. And the stars are out tonight, whispering so loud they cannot be ignored, and it feels as if it's been ages since he's looked up,  _really_  looked up, and gazed at the beauty worlds and worlds away.

"They're so bright," Mikasa says, her gaze fixed upwards. "The stars."

Eren nods his head. "Sometimes I forget they're even up there."

Sometimes he forgets about the beauty right here, forgets about the immediate splendor that surrounds him in this world of his own. Sometimes he forgets that this earth he's trying to save is not all broken dreams and crimson red. It's nice to remember.

"I could stay like this forever," Mikasa says, her voice almost lost on a summer breeze.

And Eren thinks back to those moments of childhood indecision at bedtime, his mother telling him to make a wish upon the northern star, and never being able to make up his mind on what to wish for. Now he knows.

"Yeah," Eren whispers back, "Me too."


	17. Maybe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Eremika Fluff Week 2014—Prompt 7: Confessions
> 
> Warnings: yes, hello, I come bearing more borderline smut. Also drinking/alcohol
> 
> A/N: Oh, Anon who requested [15. Rippling] from Eren's POV, I'll get working on that; I just wanted to finish all the prompts I had planned before getting to your request. Also, I probably won't do that exact scenario from Eren's POV, but I hope a continuation will suffice?

It all started with a bottle of liquor.

Well,  _technically_  it all started when they'd been assigned to clear out the storage closet,  _and then_ they'd happened upon the bottle of whiskey. After that, Eren had taken a swig, and gasped and sputtered like the child he was, and after  _that_  she'd taken a sip just to prove her point. However, Mikasa's mind couldn't seem to fill in the gaps between her second or third sip, and the present.

The details on how they'd ended up kissing on the floor they were supposed to have been sweeping were hazy—she certainly couldn't remember when the kissing had started, and presently she had no rationale for why she couldn't locate her shirt.

They can't have had  _that much_. And yet it takes both pairs of their fumbling hands to work off her belt, and she really has absolutely no rationale for getting undressed other than the fact that clothes are confining, and that they make making out on the storage closet floor  _a lot_  harder than it has to be.

"What are you doing?" She asks when Eren breaks the kiss, fidgeting down under her.

"Taking my shirt off. What does it look like?"

"Why?"

"It's hot in here," Eren responds after a long while. "And I can't get it off because you're sitting on it."

"Oh, sorry. Need help?"

"Nah. I got it."

They part, and without taking his eyes off of her, Eren pulls his shirt over his head. And Mikasa has to laugh, because he's trying so hard: tongue wetting his bottom lip as he tries so hard, so very, very hard to make the awkward task of shimmying out of his pants while sitting on the floor look sexy.

"What's so funny?" he asks as Mikasa climbs back on top of him.

"Nothing," she lies, playing with the key around his neck.

"Are you going to keep laughing?"

"No," she giggles.

Eren makes a face.

"Why are you frowning?"

"Because I don't get the joke," he hiccups, "Also because we're still wearing underwear and it's still hot."

"We can fix that easy."

They go back at it again, and he still tastes like whiskey, which must mean she does too, and Mikasa really hopes that she'll be able to remember all of this in the morning. Or not. As of present, she can't really decide, because her sober, tomorrow self will be absolutely mortified, and she's never been all that great at handling mortification. But  _god_  do his fingers feel good when they touch her like that, or when his tongue wanders down to her chest, and when, exactly, did he end up on top?

Though really, she could care less—she just wants to keep kissing him. And it appears that they're at odds over this matter because Eren pulls away, his face serious, and then: "D'you like me?" he asks.

"Maybe," Mikasa replies. She toys with the key around his neck, not meeting his eyes.

"Like, a yes, maybe, or, like, a  _no,_  maybe?"

"Like, a  _maybe_ , maybe,"

"That's not a real answer," Eren complains. And then the alcohol induced flush on his cheeks grows deeper. "Because, like, I maybe, sorta, kinda like you."

"Oh."

"Yeah," says Eren as he scratches his head. "But you can't tell anyone! And now you have to tell me!"

"I do not!"

"Yes ya do. That's how the  _rules_  go," he slurs.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't you remember? The Whiskey Rules. I take a shot. You take a shot. You say something. I say something. Well, I took a shot. And you took a shot. And I said a thing. And now it's your turn to say a thing."

"Oh yeah. Right."

"So which is it? Is it a yes-maybe or a no-maybe?"

Biting her lip, Mikasa concentrates, wracking her brain for an escape route. But whiskey really isn't conducive to strategizing. So instead, she kisses him—hard. And arching her back up, her teeth tug at his bottom lip, her fingers trailing down his abdomen...

With a shuddering groan, Eren's hand nudges hers aside, and then he pulls away. "That's still not an answer," he says, his voice thin. "So which is it?"

Mikasa holds back a sigh—even drunk and naked, he still incredibly persistent. And so she beckons him closer, fingers cupping his ear as she leans in to tell her secret, lips ghosting over the curve of his ear.

"Maybe," she breathes, heart beating fast and head spinning, "it's a maybe-I-like-you-too."

 


	18. Thirst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Anonymous: "This [15. RIPPLES] was good! Can you do this from erens POV?"
> 
> A/N: Thanks, Anon, for the request! I'm so sorry it took so long to complete, I'm working on multiple projects at once, and since one is a collaboration, that one took precedent. Anyways, this was really fun to write—I enjoyed exploring this theme of Eren and Mikasa confronting (or avoiding, depending on how you look at it) sexual tension.
> 
> Follows 15. Ripples

Sitting there in the tent, within such close proximity to her, Eren tries so hard to keep his mind from wandering to that day. That day when there'd been only a curtain of leaves hiding him in his entirety from her, and her from him, that impending fear that his body would betray him in the most uncomfortable and conspicuous of ways…

And it'd only been yesterday.

Eren tries not to think of how when he strode back into the creek, he'd caught a glimpse of her pale, slender figure out of his periphery, but telling himself  _not_  to think of something yields the opposite effect, and a familiar, troublesome sensation begins to grow in the pit of his stomach as he tells himself not to think of that lean, slender and bare body up against his own, his fingers wandering feverishly down the ripples of her abdomen as his tongue traces the ridge of her collarbone.

"Are you alright?" Her voice startles him, and her hand reaches up to feel his forehead.

He flinches at her touch. "I'm fine. Just a little warm."

Mikasa nods her head. "Stay hydrated and drink water. Your cheeks are pink."

So he does, taking the water sack from her hands; he can feel her intent gaze on his skin as he tips his head back to drink, a stray drop sliding down his neck over his bobbing Adam's apple.

"Thanks," he says when he finishes, handing the water sack back. And before he knows it, she's close to him and he's close to her, her finger trailing down the sole rivulet on his neck, and she's kissing him, and he's kissing her back. He finds himself leaning back on a forearm, his other hand tangled in her hair. His tongue touches the seam of her lips, and they part, inviting him in, they touch tentatively, spiraling slowly down this rift of uncharted territory. And then she stretches out over him. Her breasts are flush against his chest, and their hips align, and she presses against him hard, and Eren breaks away from her feverish lips, a moan breaking free. He slips from his forearm, head and back crashing against the ground, Mikasa's chin knocking painfully against his shoulder as she falls too. There's cursing and whimpering, and they curl away, nursing their wounds.

But they stop for too long. The spell is broken. As they regain their breath, the reality of the tent comes back into focus, and the flush on their cheeks loses its lust, now finding its origins in embarrassment. It's as if a third-party has walked in on them, and yet there's no one else there.

"Goodnight," Mikasa stutters, as she brushes a strand of hair from her own face.

"Yeah, you too," Eren says.

He wants to say more—to say anything about what just happened, to kiss her again—but there's still that feeling of a third presence occupying the tent. Silence reigns save for their shuffling as they settle themselves down on the mat, both of them trying to pretend that nothing's changed, that they've never touched, that they don't feel the way they do.

So like yesterday, they face opposite ways, lying as far away as possible as the tent will allow. And as Eren lies awake, long after the candle is blown out, another thirst remains.

 


	19. Reignite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel a bit guilty for having this one be borderline smutty when the past 3/4 prompts have been sort of smutty too, but at least I've got some plot going on behind it all?
> 
> Loosely inspired by Frank Sinatra's It Started All Over Again. Set a few years post canon timeline.

Three months is such a long time. A single letter does little ease the pains of homesickness—it doesn't carry nearly the same amount of warmth as a hand, or the same shade of emerald eyes. And yet hasn't she moved past that? Is she not above foolish feelings such as these, strong enough to stand on her own? Three months may've been prolonged—painful, even, at times—but separate missions have taught her that out on the field, the only person you can truly rely on is yourself. Not on friends, not on luck, not even on your superior officers. Not on that memory from three months ago, when she'd let him pull her closer, and they'd kissed each other not goodbye, but until we meet again. Even that is an unreliable source of dependency, for everything dies eventually. Nothing is interminable. So what makes love the exception? Mikasa thought herself so resolute, so committed to these beliefs, with three months of separation to strengthen them. And yet, why does she feel this way?

She's shaking, heart pounding in her chest, eyes fixated on the cabin growing nearer and nearer. Her horse tosses his head and whinnies as they slow from a gallop to a trot, feeding off of her energy; they gradually slow until they stop entirely.

_Until we meet again_. That day is so vivid in her mind. They'd both been so broken-hearted the day they departed on opposite paths, reassuring one another that this separation wouldn't be forever. They promised that they'd stay safe for the time they'd be apart. And they did. She knows he'll be there at the rendezvous point—the last messenger confirmed that the promise had been kept. This strange feeling in her head and chest—it's only heightened by the knowledge that in a few short minutes, they'll be standing face to face once again.

The letter weighs heavy in her breast pocket: Armin's neat script on one side, Eren's scrawl on the other, she spent many a night reading their words over and over, hands tangled in her own scarf, their words a lullaby that sang her to sleep. Mikasa thinks about how soon, imagination won't have to compensate for empty ears, and her heart beats faster. This feeling is vaguely familiar, a ghost that's always hung around in the back of her mind, a sensation she thought she'd buried away months ago, the same sensation that left her, at times, deserted, detached, returns. How frustrating. She'd been so lost those first two weeks, thought herself found, independent, triumphant by the end, and now she's lost again.

"Ackerman!" one of her comrades circles back and calls out to her, breaking her from her trance, "Are you coming?"

"Yes, sir."

And snapping the reigns, Mikasa follows the rest of the group, the cabin drawing nearer and nearer in the fading light of day…

**. . . . . . . . . .**

The cabin looks deserted from the exterior, the only indication of the others the horses in the stables. Mikasa and the rest of her group dismount, and head inside. The illusion of abandonment is immediately shattered when they enter—quite literally—they can hear something break in the other room, a waterfall of explicatives unleashed, followed by boisterous laughing.

A stoic faced Levi greets them. He looks them over once, and then again before sighing: "Wipe your shoes on the mat before you go any further."

Mikasa surveys the room, taking in the four empty chairs, and the steaming kettle on the stove, the kitchen in an immaculate state which she suspects the captain oversaw himself. The palms of her hands are beginning to sweat as she looks every which way, and she considers moving to check up on the other rooms. There's a tap on her shoulder. And so Mikasa turns.

"Armin!"

They throw their arms around each other, and when he laughs, it's deeper than she remembers, it fills the room in a way that it never did before. Afterwards, they exchange the usual pleasantries, inquiring about the other's state of health, and the success of the missions. Mikasa compliments Armin's hair, noticing how he's begun to tie it half up, silently noting to herself how he's finally surpassed her in height; they move to the commons area where Mikasa exchanges greetings with the others, thanks Armin for the letter, apologizing for not being able to return it, and then listens in earnest as he recounts the events of the past three months.

"That's new," Mikasa says, indicating the newly healed gash on Armin's forearm.

"Oh, that," Armin says, scratching his nose as his face grows pink. "It gives the false impression of an impressive back-story. I fell off a wagon."

The feeling of apprehension built up in her chest and head slowly dissipates to her relief. Perhaps it all was just a moment of weakness. But it's past now. She's sure of it. In fact she only barely registers that she hasn't seen him yet, only barely wonders where he could be; and it's Levi, not her, who inquires on his whereabouts.

"Arlert, where did that brat wander off to?"

"I think he's out chopping firewood like you asked, sir."

"Still? I give him the job requiring the least amount of competence, and it  _still_  takes him two damn hours longer than it should?" Levi shakes his head. "Pitiful." And then he pulls out his pocket watch, sighing again as he looks at the time; he takes his leave with a cold nod to the both of them before heading off.

"I probably should go too," Armin says not long after, "There are some notes I want to look over before bed."

"Alright," Mikasa says with a small smile. "I think I'll stay up just a little longer."

Armin nods his head, and then leaves. But before he crosses the threshold, he turns back. "He's recently taken to staying out later than everyone else," he says, chin inclined towards the door.

"It's not like that," Mikasa says hurriedly.

Armin gives an unconvinced smile. "Just don't stay up too late," and then he's gone.

Mikasa nearly calls after Armin to correct him, but decides against it at the last moment. Perhaps she'll clear things up with Armin in the morning—assure him it's not what it looks like. It's just that she doesn't know where the rooms are, and she doesn't feel like waking anyone to bother asking where they are, and going room to room trying to discern which one's free while avoiding creating a disturbance seems an unwise choice-the couch seems a welcome alternative. At least for tonight. She really must make sure to correct Armin in the morning.

She begins to settle in, taking off her jacket and scarf and laying it across the top of her bag, when the front door creaks open. And as heavy footsteps approach the room, her pounding heartbeat returning, she can't stop her breath from quickening. It's him. It has to be. Her eyes frantically scan the room for somewhere to look because she cannot look at him,  _she cannot look at him_. After all, it's not him she's waiting up for. But she's too late.

" _Mikasa_?" a voice in the darkness calls.

She freezes. She knows that voice. Like Armin's, it's gotten deeper in the past three months, gruffer, a slight rasp to it at the end, yet not beyond recognition. Slowly, she raises her gaze to meet the figure that stands before her; he too has grown taller, his shoulders filled out, arms and chest noticeably broader. And if those emerald eyes weren't staring back at her with such familiarity, such pained happiness and disbelief that she prays to whatever force lies above mirrors her own, she wouldn't know it was him.

"Eren," she whispers back.

He's doing the same to her, eyes searching for the girl he parted with three months ago, and she feels him linger on the scar that sits high on her right cheek, his lips still parted from when he last spoke. His brown lashes flutter, and she watches the rise and fall of his throat as he swallows.

"How…How are you?" he finally asks.

"I'm alright," she says, hoping that he doesn't hear the waver in her voice. "And yourself?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

Such hollow formality, such distance between them—how it makes her ache. Something inside her desperately wants to reach out her hand and brush the hair from his forehead, to pull him close in an embrace, the need so great it consumes her, burning through all her previous reservations, sending her defenses up in smoke. She can't recall who moved first—if it was him, or if it was her—but suddenly they're standing close, toe to toe, her fingers longing to feel his around hers once more. Up so close, she gets a feel for how tall he's truly grown—she has to incline her chin just to look him in the eye; if they both inhale deeply, perhaps they'll finally touch.

"Your hair," she whispers, her fingers reaching up and taking a lock in her grasp, one of the warm, brown strands that hangs at his face, "it's grown longer."

They intertwine, arms wrapping around one another, and when Eren presses his forehead to hers, one hand sliding down a tress of hair that just reaches her shoulder, Mikasa closes her eyes.

"Yours too," Eren whispers back. And his thumb moving to her chin, they kiss.

It's so easy to lose themselves, and so hard to stop once they've started, all their caution falling to the task of staying quiet, the only sounds in the common room of meeting and parting lips, the occasional deep inhale or exhale of breath, whispers that ride out between kisses— _Welcome back. I'm glad you're safe. I've missed you. God, how I've missed you_ —the easy creak of the couch as they settle down across it.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Eren murmurs into her neck.

"I was going to sleep here," Mikasa whispers back.

"Here?"

"I didn't know where the rooms were, and no one's up."

She feels him pause, and when he speaks again, his voice is cautious, hesitant: "I can show you if you want."

Her breath hitches in her throat. Just a few short hours ago she thought herself so above feelings such as these, entirely independent from the affairs of love and all the nonsense that went with it. Maybe she doesn't need all this, but does she ever want this. Mikasa wants this more than she can bear. She wants to wake up next to him tomorrow morning, wants to hold his hand in hers, wants to hear him talk, eyes gleaming, about how they'll travel the outside world together, how they'll journey to the ends of the earth and back again. She wants to pick up where they last left off three months before.

"I'd like that," she whispers.

And so she lets him spirit her away, lets him lead her down the darkened hallway, tiptoeing past closed doors until they reach the room at the end of the hall. She lets him lay her across the bed, his hand burning a trail through the valley of her breasts and over the taut expanse of torso that follows, fingers lingering at the soft, sensitive skin further below her navel before he presses to her lips a kiss filled with such ardor and longing she becomes dizzy, unable to comprehend how she spent three months without him by her side.

And before Mikasa knows it, it's starting all over again.


	20. Almost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Anonymous: "Eskimo kiss"
> 
> Hey Anon! So I'm assuming you mean "Eskimo kiss" as in when two people touch noses together, and not a kunik, the traditional Inuit greeting from which "eskimo kiss" is very, very loosely based upon. Hopefully you'll forgive me for rambling, but I did some reading online and found it very interesting: a kunik is when one person presses their nose and their upper lip on the cheek or forehead and inhaling; this is actually seen throughout many other cultures as well—my own grandmother's done it for as long as I can remember!
> 
> Anyways, thanks for the request, here you are:
> 
> Follows [19. Reignite] though it could stand on its own, I guess.

She catches him staring quite often. Like in the middle of meetings or during meals—she'll allow herself the indulgence of letting her eyes wander over across the table to his face, only to find a shock of green already trained on her. Mikasa quickly snaps her gaze away, heat rising to her face, and breath quickening. But even after, she still feels him staring, unperturbed that she's noticed. How shameless.

They still haven't really talked, still haven't really gotten a moment to themselves since that night two days ago. All they have is a few stolen touches: the brush of fingers at dinnertime, his hand grazing her hip as he passes her in the hall, her body pressing up against his if only for a moment when they walk through a door at the same time. And the moments where she opens her mouth to say something, or where their gazes and touching hands linger for just too long, are always interrupted by some meddlesome force—the lunch bell ringing at just the wrong moment, their chore schedules never intercepting, one of the superior officers inquiring after one or both of them. Perhaps they used up all their allotted time during that first night. What a shame. And yet, entirely worth it.

They come so close today. Mikasa's exiting the stables just as Eren enters, each of them tottering from side to side as they try to clear the way for the other, both of them miserably failing. She relents, stepping back to let him pass.

"Thanks," Eren says with a sheepish grin.

Mikasa smiles back. One of the horses whinnies, tossing its head, and back at the house, incomprehensible raised voices carry while the two of them simply stand and stare, waiting for the other to speak while their own brains scramble for something to say, and yet all that Mikasa can think about is how fate is ill-humored, finally bringing them together only to leave them speechless.

And so they don't talk. Just like that night—and it feels as if it's been ages since then—they come closer and closer, each one drawn to the other by some indescribable force, until they're close enough to kiss, and  _god_ , is she aching to.

Her eyes close as he bends down, his forehead touching her own, the tip of his nose just meeting hers, his hot breath at her lips. And when he nuzzles ever so slightly, she nuzzles back.

"The other night…" Mikasa whispers as the tip of his nose wanders up the bridge of hers, his rough lips grazing the skin of her forehead when he speaks.

"I had a nice time."

"Me too."

"I missed you."

"I missed you too."

Slowly, slowly, Eren makes the path back down, until she can feel his mouth just in front of hers. Her lips part, and her heart pounds in her chest, eager to give in to his electric touch after far too long…

"Ackerman! Where'd you disappear to?" a voice rings out, a ways away, yet still too close for comfort, and the spell is broken as they scramble apart from one another.

Eren swears.

"Never a moment of peace," Mikasa says as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Never any time," Eren adds, setting his jaw.

Reluctantly, Mikasa turns away, grabbing two buckets and heading for the door. They were so close, so very close this time…

And then she whips around, a little faster than she would've liked, and then she speaks, a little louder than she would've preferred: "Then let's make time," she tugs at her scarf, with one hand, hoping to hide the rising color creeping up her face. "Back here? After lights out?"

Eren grins, and then nods his head.


	21. Study

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, Anon, for the request, I'm sorry it took so long to get to you—I just got back home from camp a few days ago. Also, thank you to everyone who's been taking the time to favorite, and follow, and leave such wonderful reviews. It's really amazing to know that what I do is being appreciated and enjoyed.
> 
> Warnings: non-explicit sexual situations

It's starts in comfortable silence as it always does—their thighs just barely touching, a book spread out in front of them as they study charts, and maps, and battle tactics they know like the back of their hands, but still feel the need to review anyways.

And they've been like this a thousand times: sometimes sitting not quite as close, sometimes sitting closer, but always following some untraceable path where they discover themselves with their arms and legs linked tightly together, and then someone's hands get too daring, someone's lips too curious, and the pot boils over with pent up passion, the book between them shoved to the side to make room.

Eren remembers the first time so vividly. He'd absentmindedly slid the side of his foot up Mikasa's calf as he adjusted the way he sat, brow furrowing when he noticed that she'd gone rigid.  _Sorry_ , he'd said. His face had grown hot, and he couldn't understand why she'd overreacted, and why he'd felt so flustered. It was, after all, just one touch.

They've somewhat outgrown that stage now, and Eren's come to learn that just a touch, just one, single touch, is all it really takes to set things in motion, and today, he does just that. His head dips down, lips finding the soft skin of her neck, heart fluttering when she lets out a breathy gasp. He laps at her skin, the hand curled round her waist bunching the fabric of her shirt in a fist, she allows him to wander, her head rolling back and lips parting when his fingers slide beneath her bra. Hearts beat faster, and breathing gets louder, eyes stray from the book before them, the geography of each other's bodies, every dip, every curve, every ridge, and every valley, so much more engaging than that of the land outside the walls.

"We should be reviewing," Mikasa murmurs as she peels off Eren's shirt, throwing it on the table next to her own clothes. Unobstructed, Eren pulls her into his arms, her back against his taut chest, one hand at her breasts while the other heads due south.

"We should," he agrees; he speaks softly into her ear, hissing as her hips push back into his. And yet what's voiced never comes to fruition, for they have leafed through the same books over and over, illustrations and tactics that once stunned them have lost their novelty. But no matter how many times they touch, no matter how many times they kiss, they never grow weary of one another, never cease to feel their hearts quicken as they shed their clothes and press naked flesh to naked flesh. This never gets old.


	22. Bitter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by killerqueen04 and Saiyajin no Ouhi: A jealous Eren. (maybe of Levi or Jean)
> 
> A/N: Set during their trainee days.
> 
> I'm in love with the rivalry between Eren and Jean-I consider them foils, one of my favorite types of dynamics. Also, I'd like to point out that since I'm writing from Eren's POV, I'm going to write about Jean as Eren would talk about Jean, and that Eren's opinions do not always coincide with my own. I know it seems like a silly thing to address, but I've gotten displeased comments in the past over this sort of thing before, so here's a nice disclaimer!
> 
> On another note, I'm not quite satisfied with how this one turned out, so I'm sorry about that as well as the fact that this took near forever to churn out.

Eren had thought for the longest of times that no one could spur his jealousy so easily, or leave him so empty with inadequacy like Mikasa could—for nothing could be more hopeless than watching her excel without effort as he lagged behind, right? How wrong he was. Mikasa's indifferent success is far, far better than a toothy grin and an arrogantly raised eyebrow, a smug  _Maybe next time, Yeager_ , and the bile he tastes in the back of his throat each time each time the Military Police during dinner is mentioned tastes far, far worse than how the flush of embarrassment feels across his cheeks. Jean Kirschstein is the worst.

Especially tonight. Eren can feel those horrible eyes and smirk on their table, and the cup in his grip feels as if it threatens to shatter. "He's staring again," Eren hisses through his teeth.

"Ignore it. Don't let it get to you," Armin says, his eyebrows knit together as he watches Eren intently.

"If I hear him talking shit about the Scouting Legion one more time tonight, I swear—Don't shake your head at me!" Eren snaps, and a few heads turn towards them from the opposite side of the table, his words a little too loud.

Unfazed, Mikasa finishes chewing her bread before responding: "Armin's right, Eren. If he bothers you so much, ignore him."

"How  _doesn't_  it annoy the hell out of you guys? That asshole isn't here for humanity, he's here for himself. He's here to have it made in Wall Sina while people out there die."

She tugs on her scarf. "I don't consider it my place to judge other people's motives for being here."

"Obviously. Is that why you had no problem pairing up with him today during 3DM training?"

This time her face darkens just the slightest, sharp eyes meeting his, betraying the foreboding that her voice does not. "You were training with Reiner, and he asked," she says.

"Whatever," Eren spits as he rises from his seat.

"Wait, Eren!" Armin cries out. But Eren doesn't look back, steps falling heavier as he hears Kirschstein inquire after his seat just as he leaves the dining hall.

There's a lot that Eren doesn't get about all this: why Armin and Mikasa don't feel the same, why Jean's so hell-bent on aggravating him, why it makes him sick just thinking about Jean sitting where  _he_  was just sitting a few moments ago. All he knows is that before tonight, he thought he couldn't dislike Jean anymore than he did already, and that Jean Kirschstein has quite the knack for proving him wrong.


	23. Signs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Jennsen: how about Eren/Mikasa from Armin's point of view? (I have a weakness for shipper!Armin, and I like to think he'd realized how these two felt about each other long before they realized it themselves.)
> 
> Warnings: traumatic flashbacks
> 
> A/N: Thank you so much for the request! So funny story: I sat down, opened up a word document and prepared myself to write some fluff...but then this came out.

He's always had a rather impeccable memory. Years ago, his mother kept a quilt of embroidered patches: a sunset shimmering across the water beside the one of a field of ice, just above the one of strange animals with necks like trees, and noses that hung down like swinging ropes—Armin could remember each one and where exactly it was placed. He still can today.

But an exemplary memory isn't the blessing it once was. Its use is no longer in guiding him down streets and alleyways, Eren and Mikasa trailing behind him as they find their way back home after wandering too far out, the days in which his grandfather would recite the names of all the kings, and he'd recite them back have fled. His mother's quilt is gone. Instead, he is trapped within the confines of his own mind, their voices ringing in his ears—frantic sobs punctuating each desperate and final cry for help—and their terror-filled faces burned in his vision with such clarity, such vividness, it's as if it were all happening before him once more. Like the kings, he can recite all of them by name.

And yet there is one memory more lucid and more real than all the rest—but the vision is so mutilated only a small portion of reality is preserved within the nightmare. Whenever Armin thinks back to that day, he finds himself standing on that deserted cobblestone street. And it should be Hannah before him. It should be her voice pleading with him to help. It should be what remains of Franz beneath her shaking hands and tremblings lips whenever this moment of the past corrupts his mind and weighs on his soul, but it never is. Sometimes it's Eren who takes the place of Hannah; he hovers over Mikasa, hands trying to wake a heart forever lost to sleep, and lips passing air to lungs that will never again move on their own accord. Sometimes it's the other way around.

But it's troublesome—the fact that each time he recalls the faces of Hannah and Franz, Eren and Mikasa's figures appear alongside them. This error of his memory, always so inerrant, drives him mad with terror and foreboding that perhaps when he is looking backwards, he is in reality looking forwards—a grim foretelling of the future. For the signs are everywhere, and Armin sees them all the time.

As the three of them have grown up together, seen things they'd rather leave unseen, lost friends they didn't get to say goodbye to, he's watched the two of them cling tighter to one another in ways he can't provide, a dormant undiscovered fire raging beneath the surfaces of their skins. He's seen how they gravitate towards one another, a pair of moths drawn to their own deadly flame; he's seen the warmth in their secret stolen glances, the heat of their hesitant touches, fingertips testing the metal of a pot atop a stove. Armin sees the signs all the time. And he is frightened. For how dangerous it is to live, and to love and to be loved, in a world as merciless as theirs.


	24. Spar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Jennsen: Or how about exploring what Eren might feel about Mikasa being much stronger physically than him? (It's kind of hot, when you think about it, LOL).
> 
> A/N: You mentioned how Mikasa being stronger than Eren was "kind of hot, when you think about it." So I did. I thought about it. And damn. Hot damn.
> 
> I'm not entirely pleased with the execution of this one, but thank you so much for the request and support!

He's not fooled by her act in the slightest—he knows how a punch feels when it's not thrown at full value, knows Mikasa's much too smart to be letting these opportunities he's presenting go to waste. And she wonders why he refuses to spar with her.

She throws predictable punches and jabs, and a few well-aimed but soft kicks, and Eren blocks them with ease, the ones that make it past his defenses hitting with a reserved temper. His own attacks are met with her typical ease and grace. Not one of his punches land where they're intended.

It's increasingly frustrating, it's a knock to his pride, and his patience is waning. And fast. At one point, she demonstrates pure sloppiness, and Eren leaps at the chance, grasping her wrist and turning, locking her arm behind her back. He vaguely notes how in years past she didn't have to arch her neck to meet his gaze like she does now.

"I know you're not giving it your all," Eren says, fighting the urge to look away from her wide eyes, his breath slightly labored, but hers is too. "Don't hold back." He releases her from his grip, and they split apart, guards up and feet ready to move.

This time she lunges with more speed, dodging a few of his jabs and punches, and countering with a few of her own, which she lands with accuracy, but with only enough power to make solid contact, the sting of the blow dissipating upon impact.

"I said don't hold back," Eren says as he deflects a shot to his head. "I can handle it." He thinks he hears her sigh.

Eren doesn't see it coming. He feels his feet lose contact with the ground, and suddenly he's on his back, Mikasa's knees on either side of his torso, and her fist a centimeter away from the tip of his nose. Her expression betrays nothing, eyes indifferent, and lips just parted to breathe, but he can hear it in her voice—the subtle satisfaction, the hidden anticlimactic tone as if she knew full well that this was going to happen: "Are we done?" Mikasa asks.

His own face grows hot, heat creeping across his cheeks and up his neck and ears. Eren's response is a lunge to free himself from her hold and turn the tables, but something strikes him in the chest, knocking him back to the ground and the air from his lungs; he sputters and gasps and when he finally controls his breathing, her thighs are locked firmly around his waist, and her forearm pins his hands above his head.

And he should be fuming right now. He should be ashamed of his own weakness, should be completely irritated by her deception—and he is, he really is—but all else is overwhelmed by the uncomfortable notion of her hips pressed firm to his lower abdominal, her gaze that he can't seem to meet, her hot breath at his lips, a curtain of her raven hair hanging round their faces, the relentless blush that stains his face with fire: above all his own terrible awkwardness.

To his relief, she finally rolls off of him, releasing his hands, the black curtain lifting. "Are you all right?" she asks, offering him her hand. She has the audacity to knit her brows together. As if she's  _really_  concerned about him.

"I don't need your help," he replies. And, pride wounded, and something else he can't quite name weighing on his heart and coloring his cheeks, Eren rises to his feet unassisted, turns his back, and leaves.

 


	25. Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Anonymous on AO3: If you accept prompts, how about Mikasa telling Eren about her childhood? I understand, given how little we know about it from canon, that it could easily be 'jossed', but I always found it curious she didn't seem to have any friends aside from Eren and Armin. That must have had some impact on her, and it'd be cool to see it explored a little in fic.
> 
> A/N: Hey there, Anon, I have to apologize for this one...I seem to have focused more on the friend aspect of your request rather than Mikasa and Eren actually having a conversation about her childhood...sorry about that ( `_ ` ;)
> 
> Takes place after Mikasa arrives at the Yeager house.

For a long time after, Mikasa doesn't speak. She can't. It's as if the words are caught in her throat, locked away the moment she entered this strange place where the buildings, not trees, tower overhead, where so far she's seen more people than ants.

It was panic that set in first when Mikasa found that she couldn't utter a 'thank you' to Auntie Carla after she gave her a change of clothes, swaddling her in a blanket and setting her in front of the fire with a hot cup of cocoa. Her hands had flown to her throat, mind reeling as she tries to remember where she might've misplaced her voice, if she could've dropped it, or if she'd left it back at the house with the rest of her clothes and things. Second comes the anxiety: what would her mother think if she knew that she'd neglected her manners? And her father will be disappointed too—surely, she'll get a scolding. Sadness comes third when she realizes that she'll never be scolded by her parents again. And tears follow.

She cries a lot these days. She cries herself to sleep and wakes bleary-eyed and puffy in the mornings, she cries whenever someone tries to speak to her, she cries whenever she thinks about the little things like how it's so much more crowded here than it was back home, how the card she made for her father's birthday still lies unread beneath her bed at the cabin.

But the boy, Eren, he doesn't seem to mind—or, at least, if he does, he pretends not to. He doesn't complain about the fact that she clings to his side every waking moment—he encourages it, even: tugging her around by the sleeve, beckoning her over to his side in the few moments she's not already there. And when she cries, he gives her a hardened look, but he never yells at her for it, instead taking the ends of her scarf and wiping her tears—though sometimes his touch is rough to her cheeks. And Mikasa wishes with all her heart that her voice would return so that she could say something,  _anything_ , because she's never had anyone in her life besides from her parents who's looked out for her like this—and even then, the way they cared for her, they way they held her hand, is different from the way Eren leads her through the crowded streets of Shiganshina, her fingers locked tightly in his grasp. How she longs to reciprocate—to take care of him the way he does her.

Gradually, gradually, little by little, she works on finding her voice again, her lips practice forming the shape of the two little words into the softness of her pillow at night, and into the safety of the scarf that now hangs around her neck each and every day, until one day she summons the courage and says it: "Thank you," she tells him one day as they collect water from the well.

He looks at her without speaking for a long while, and for a moment she worries that he hadn't heard her. "For what?" Eren asks. "Oh," he says when he realizes, the moments from the past two weeks replaying through his mind. And then he shrugs. "That's what friends are supposed to do."

"I've never had a friend before," Mikasa whispers, voice shaking; tears beginning to fall again.

"Well," Eren says. He shuffles from foot to foot. "You do now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I kind of like to imagine that Eren didn't mind Mikasa's clinginess in the early days.
> 
> Once again, sorry, Nonnie, that I kind of failed at your request.


	26. Deny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Anonymous: Armin meeting Mikasa for the first time after she moves in with Eren's family
> 
> A/N: Just a heads up that I've started school again, so I'm not going to be able to write as frequently as I would like.

He has to set the basket down before knocking. When the door opens, he's met by Mrs. Yeager's apron and dress, both covered in flour, and the smell of something baking in the oven. It smells delicious, and he's suddenly rather self-conscious of the market-bought loaves of bread in his basket.

"Armin!" Mrs. Yeager says as she ushers him inside. "What a pleasant surprise!"

Eren appears from the other side of her skirt almost as soon as he clears the door. "Did you come to meet her?" he asks, eyebrows knit together and serious as always.

Armin nods his head. "My grandfather sent me over with some food and clothes."

He heard about her parents, heard the whispers on the street about how the Ackermans were brutally killed in their own home, how the murderers were found hours later dead, with two ten-year old children alive and covered in blood that didn't belong to them…He's still not sure if he believes it.

When he first catches sight of her, she's peeking around a corner, one half of her face obscured by raven hair and the other by a burgundy red scarf; bright doe-eyes flash to his before ducking back behind the bend. Eren darts after her, and Armin discerns Eren's voice, uncharacteristically soft and coaxing, before he reappears again, leading the wide-eyed girl out by the hand.

"Mikasa," Eren says, "meet Armin."

Armin extends his hand, just like his grandfather always taught him to when meeting new people. "It's nice to meet you."

The girl peers at him from behind Eren, her replacement for the corner, whispering something Armin doesn't quite catch, and after Eren gives her a nudge, her trembling hand stretches out to meet his.

"I brought you some of my old clothes," Armin stutters, his voice a bit too loud. "But they're probably not the right size…" he says, noticing how she's as tall, if not taller, than he is.

The three men dead at the end of the night, two children alive—the thought sends him shivering. And Armin decides at that moment, as he watches Eren tenderly holding her hand and Mikasa cowering behind him, that he doesn't believe a word of the rumors, and that he'll never ask. The three of them, though they have their discrepancies—Eren's fiery passion and temper, Mikasa's cowering silence, his own calm resolve—are all so alike. Murder. The word leaves a bile taste in the back of throat without him even uttering it. People don't murder, monsters do. And how could anyone like Eren, anyone like her, anyone like _him_ , be capable of something like  _that_?

 


	27. Defiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by various people: A follow-up of Spar
> 
> Warnings: non-explicit sexual content
> 
> A/N: Follows [23. Spar] in theme, though it could definitely stand alone.
> 
> Sorry it took me forever to update—school's been keeping me busy.

Even in the hurried moments, Eren always catches himself briefly hung up on her impressive physique. There are the moments when she's turned away to undress, and he indulges in the view as Mikasa pulls her shirt over her head, the ridges of her abdomen rippling as obtrusive fabric comes away from heated skin, the moments his hands linger too long on her taut belly, and she ever so quietly whines her frustration, arching her back upwards to remind him to travel where she wants him to—the places delicate and soft.

And then there are the moments like these where she leaves him no time to revel, peculiar moments like these when that rare look glints in her eyes and she decides that tonight is not his night to lead, decides that this go around she's not content with guiding from below, filled with the simple urge for a change of perspective.

And each time he recognizes that look in her eyes, feels the pressure of her thighs on his hips grow stronger and stronger, he tries to fight it, stand his ground. To this day, he's never won. So his back hits the mattress, and he finds himself staring up instead of down, and he's dizzy; dizzy from the fall and dizzy off of her. Her lips are parted and she pants—from what he assumes is the exhilaration and not the feat of reorientation—pink tongue wetting her mouth as her eyes trace his body beneath her, and her raven hair sticks to her skin save for the strand that falls in her eyes; Eren props himself up on a forearm to tuck it behind her ear, pulling her in for a searing kiss as he goes.

With a firm palm to his chest, and yet not without gentleness, she presses him back into the sheets, gasping—momentarily forgetting herself, her eyes shut as she throws her head back—and then throwing him an arched eyebrow when he thrusts his hips upwards in one final act of defiance. He finds himself grinning at her reaction, and then surrendering just as quickly when her hand locks his wrists in an unbreakable grip as the tip of her tongue draws closer and closer to the center of his pectoral, her idle fingers trailing across his abdomen and venturing lower, lower, lower...

 


	28. Avarice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Sentinel07: I kind of wonder they'd react if they actually saw without obstructions since they kind of got away with it in Ripple.

The first thing he notices is the bead of water at her shoulder that inches down, down, down, over the curve of her rising and falling breast, rivulet following the ridges of her abdomen before traveling past her navel, bead of water dropping down the inside of her quivering pale thigh. And Eren wishes more than ever that he hadn't forgotten his towel as he feels his face burn red as he grows uncomfortable in more ways than one. He suffices for turning away, half conscious that the view of his ass isn't much less mortifying, and overwhelmingly thankful that she's turned away too.

"Do you have an extra towel?" he asks, doing the best to keep the waver from his voice.

"I don't." Mikasa replies, "Do you?"

Eren manages to shake his head. He holds his breath, body gone completely rigid in the silence that ensues. It's only after he counts to thirty that he opens his eyes and peeks over his shoulder. And then he snaps his head back. He'd expected her to have gone by now.

Yet here she stands. And it's not like the other times—not like the times one of them neglected to knock, not like the time the tresses of the willow betrayed the silhouette of her modesty. All that lies between them this time is two meters of space. Two meters of space separates him from her, her shivering limbs, flushed face and pale pink lips, the same pale pink lips that were so soft against his mouth that night beneath the stars, their touch leaving phantoms to haunt him in the night, searing and scarring his skin. He doesn't want to run away. Not this time.

And when he turns to face her, he finds that she's done the same. Slowly, slowly, breath by breath, they fulfill their unspoken agreement: arms uncross and fall to their sides, eyes slowly raise to meet the gaze across. Another drop of water falls to her shoulder, wandering down the same path as before.

And this time, as he takes all of her in, every detail that is her before him, he doesn't suppress the greed that grows hot beneath the surface of his skin—the greed he spent so long fearing. He fights the guilt that chastises his humanly desires, every voice that tries to persuade him that this world is too plagued for his own selfish desires—he quiets them all, stops listening entirely. And in the silence, Eren lets himself feel, let's himself want her.

 


	29. Nest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by BrokenSofia: "But haven't you ever wondered why Mikasa has feelings for Eren to begin with? Up until now, and since their childhood, Eren hasn't been exactly kind to Mikasa now that they're older. So there must be a super sweet and cuddly side of him we haven't seen yet?"
> 
> A/N: somehow this took a really angsty turn?
> 
> Warnings: animal death, mention of injury in passing.

Trailing him through the city, weaving through the throngs of people and past vague landmarks, proves harder than they anticipated, but they manage—if only barely.

"Where could he be going?" Armin whispers as he peeks over Mikasa's shoulder.

She shrugs."I don't know," they watch as Eren's figure slips around a corner, loaf of bread peeking out of his sweater pocket. "He hasn't eaten his rations," she observes.  _It's none of your business_ —he shouted at them yesterday when she tried to ask; and then he ran off, disappearing into the crowd before she and Armin could follow.

They keep up with him today, following Eren to the back alley just behind the post building. Mikasa remembers the three of them coming here not a week after they arrived in Wall Rose, the letter clenched in Eren's fist, the post officer's bitter laugh as he peered over the counter at them, the scent of alcohol pouring from his mouth.  _Sorry, kid_ , he'd said,  _your old man's way out of our mailing range_. Mikasa remembers the tips of Eren's ears growing hot red with anger, the yelling, the post officer threatening to call the guards to throw them out—she remembers the way the envelope wrinkled and stained as it was brought down under the water's murky surface, the words Eren had slaved over with the help of Armin's astute eye swallowed by the starving river.

In the alley, Eren climbs atop a wooden crate and, after checking left and right over his shoulder, sticks his head into the top of the bush that grows beside the wall. Mikasa and Armin share a puzzled look. From his pocket, they watch as he produces the loaf of bread, tearing off small pieces of the crust and hiding them belong the leaves.

"I don't understand," Mikasa whispers.

"I don't either. Come on Mikasa, maybe we should just leave—hey!"

Emerging from behind the safety of the wall, her steps deliberately echo against the pavement; she waits until Eren recovers from his start, and turns to face her before speaking: "Eren, what are you doing here?"

"What are  _you_  doing here?" he spits back.

"Why haven't you been eating your meals?" Mikasa says without breaking her stride.

"It's none of your business."

"You're wasting food, Eren."

"It's not a waste!" he shouts. And from the bush comes a chorus of alarmed chirps and ruffling.

Mikasa looks from the Eren, to the rustling leaves, and then back to Eren. "I don't understand," she says.

The sigh he gives has such a resigned quality to it, and she spots the tips of his ears already growing pink. "You can come out, Armin," Eren mutters, "I know you're there." He steps off the box, offering it to them. Armin goes first. Almost immediately, there's a breathy "oh" and then he steps down to give Mikasa a turn. "The parents haven't come back," Eren says without meeting their eyes.

Three pink fleshy lumps covered in what reminds her of patches of a sparse gray forest lay inside a nest of twigs. They remind her of reptiles, with their almost scaly skin and knot shaped eyes—it's so hard to picture the nubs on either sides of their body one day stocked with a fan of feathers.

"But what will you eat?" she asks.

Eren rips off a tiny piece of bread, softening the hard, stale interior by sticking it on his tongue; tenderly, he guides the morsel into the gaping mouth of one of the sparrow's beaks. "I don't need all of it," he says softly.

But boys can't grow on bread alone—especially not on half a loaf—and neither can baby birds, not when bread is so different than chewed up worm. The three of them are so vulnerable: eyes barely opened and skin still pinkish. They need their mother or their father, and, try as he may, Eren is neither. Mikasa knows how this plays out.

"Eren," Mikasa says, placing her hand on his arm as softly as she can, "You can't—"

"—Can't do this alone," Armin interjects, lightly nudging Mikasa in the side. He smiles. "Let us help."

And so it comes to be that over the next three days, after they receive their rations, the three of them journey to the back alley together, on some occasions, going down to the river first and scratching at the dirt. A strange yet not unpleasant feeling warms Mikasa's chest each time she observes him holding up a worm between two fingers, so triumphant in his find. And Mikasa can't help but marvel at the gentleness he employs when feeding the three sparrows, the softness of his voice as he coos. There's a tenderness in his smile that she's undeniably drawn to, eyes so bright sometimes she has to look away. And perhaps things will turn out all right after all.

Things were supposed to turn out all right.

Today the nest is silent. Three tiny little bodies, beaks upturned and downy feathers just coming in, lay huddled close together. With her hand, Mikasa shoos away the flies that have settled on their tiny wings. Looking at the nest, feeling Eren shaking beside her as he tries to cry quietly, avoiding the water welling in Armin's own eyes—it's like the time she'd been skinning potatoes, and accidentally cut her thumb. A white line appeared, and bit by bit, crimson beads began to bloom as she watched, waiting for the pain to come. Just like back then, Mikasa waits for the pain to come.

"But what did we do wrong?" Eren says, his hands clenched at his sides as his shoulders tremble. "What did I do wrong?"

The pain doesn't come. It would be far better if it did. Instead, everything inside her leaves, leaves the cavity of her chest utterly vacant, leaves her ribs aching for something, anything, to fall back into their embrace. She becomes a paradox: so empty, yet incredibly heavy with every breath and step.

It's Armin's idea to have a ceremony—nothing fancy, just a small handful of flowers that they put in the nest, and a moment of silence. And then there's nothing left to do but head back the way they came.


	30. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Sheliana: How about Eren, Mikasa, and Armin finally making it to the ocean? (That theme was explored in many a fanfic, but it's be nice to see your version of the happy ending we will most likely not get in canon.)"
> 
> A/N: I considered giving this an angsty spin, but decided against it. We all need a good happy ending every once in a while. Anyways, a special thanks to Sheliana, as well as everyone else who's been so kind with taking the time to review. Your support really means a lot.

What surprises him most out of all things is the smell. The books never described it quite like this. Salt, heavy in the air and even heavier when the wind blows—it just smells  _right._ Armin digs his toes into the warm sand, closes his eyes, and inhales deeply, ignoring the tears he lets slip from his eyes. He lets them fall, and when he opens his lips he tastes the salt, and perhaps there's been an ocean inside of him all along, and perhaps that's why standing here, atop the sand and looking out across the water, feels like coming home.

The three of them stand together, linked by the hands as they stare out into the distance where the glass sky meets the blanket of ocean, their shoes and bags, their worn capes—the emblem of the wings faded and fraying—discarded in a heap behind them. They are children again. Unscarred, untainted, born anew in this world away from words, rough edges shed like the seamless stones that scatter the shore, they become children; never ripped apart by time's scalpel, never burned by funeral pyre fire, or soaked shivering to the bone by crimson rain, but children—pure, and young, and free.

The hand to his left trembles in his own, giving him one last squeeze before slipping out of his fingers. Eren rushes to the water, landing in the sand multiple times as he stumbles. And then the hand to his right leaves his, and Mikasa breaks into a run, her footprints mingling with Eren's as she bounds out to meet him. They collide, tumbling into the salty spray.

There's trashing, and sputtering, a swear from Eren here and there, and when the two of them emerge, they take one look at each other before throwing back their heads, and laughing. And this moment of sound Armin commits to memory: the gulls crying overhead as the surf meets the land, the heartiness of Eren's laugh, and the bell-like quality of Mikasa's, both of theirs light and carefree.

Their laughter subsides, fading back into the soft of whisper of the sea, and Eren and Mikasa draw close, their foreheads meeting. Eren's lips moves slowly as he wipes a tear from Mikasa's cheek with the side of his thumb, his words so soft they're lost. And when the both of them turn to him, calling out his name, arms outstretched and eyes shining Armin's chest aches. Aches in a way it never did before—content, and warm, and right.

And so Armin runs. He runs, and he comes home.


	31. Consummate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Socchan: Could you maybe do one of the two of them getting married and having first time jitters?
> 
> Warnings: sexual content
> 
> A/N: I was kind of unclear if by first-time jitters you meant smut, so I gave it to you anyways.

It's a small, quiet ceremony—just the two of them, the officiator, and Armin as their witness. The officiator says a few words, and they sign the contract, and are on their way, the only indication that anything has changed the way she doesn't pull away when Eren moves to hold her hand.

They don't speak on the way back to his quarters, and Eren finds little comfort in the fact that her hands are sweating just as much as his. And when they arrive at his room, those same hands shake as they unwind the scarf from her neck, and tug her jacket down her arms. Tentatively, he looks to her for validation.

And it's not as if this is entirely foreign territory for them—they've traveled partway down this path before. But this final step, the last destination, the certificate that sits on his bedside table—they've waited for this for so long, wanted to be with each other like this for so long, and they're excited, and eager, but also so incredibly scared beyond belief.

They don't meet each other's eyes as they undress. They can't. Eren unbuttons each button clumsily, and Mikasa slides his pants and drawers down his hips shakily, and when they finally stand before each other completely naked, their clothes set aside and neatly folded, they look up, soaking in the image of the other's bare and trembling body, and flushing deeply at the sight.

"What now?" Mikasa says, voice quiet and wavering.

"Let's start here," Eren says back, and, closing the gap between them, he wraps his arms around her bare torso, kissing her on the lips.

They begin so tenderly, so slowly, so as not to break. And then kisses grow less hesitant and more impassioned as they allow their hands to stray, explore, discover. His body quickly betrays him, and she takes note, her fingers running up and down his length from base to tip in a way that leaves his ears burning red with both timidness and want.

It'd be so easy to lose himself—in fact he almost does right there. They're on the bed now, her hand keeping on that driving rhythm as she nips at his throat, her mouth beginning to move lower and lower down his torso as his chest grows heavier and heavier, and that feeling in the pit of his stomach winds tighter and tighter and tighter. When he opens his mouth to try to speak, he's just as taken aback as she is by the moan that leaves his lips.

"Wait," he chokes out.

Her hand snaps back, and her brow knits together with worry. "Did I hurt you? Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," he says, reassuring her by pulling her in for a deep kiss. And when his hand trails past the soft skin of her stomach, a single finger dipping into her slick center, Mikasa gasps, eyes fluttering closed. "I just want to make sure we keep things fair," Eren murmurs.

He finds himself over her, a hand at her breast, thumb circling her nipple, he runs his tongue and teeth along the nape of her neck, tasting the salt on her skin as his other hand continues to work her, fingers slipping in and out at an even pace, drawing her hips up towards him, and tiny moans and gasps from her lips that she tries so hard to keep stowed away between lip and teeth.

"Eren?" she asks.

He hums his acknowledgement against her heated skin.

"I-I think I'm ready," she stutters.

His heart jolts. "O-ok," he says. When he puts himself in position, kneeling between her open legs, fidgeting and self-conscious of every awkward shift and shuffle, he leans down, lacing her trembling fingers with his own, and kissing her. "Ready?" he whispers. Mikasa nods her head.

His hips snap away before he fully enters when he hears her whimper. Eren murmurs frenzied apologies between peppered kisses, and it's difficult to convince him, blush staining her cheeks, that it wasn't pain, and that she's all right, and that they should try again. And their second time at it, it's her hand that guides him inside of her, her other hand cupping his cheek, thumb sweeping away the sweat that falls from his brow. They breathe a shuddering sigh in unison when he fills her entirely.

"Are you okay?" Mikasa asks.

"I'm okay. Are you okay?" Eren says back.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

They take it slow, pulling their hips away ever so carefully before meeting again, both vaguely wondering in the back of their minds if this is how this sort of thing is supposed to go, though not caring all that much when that first wave of pleasure hit them at their core. Then, like the very first kisses, they let themselves get lost in every movement, and breath, allow themselves to be overcome in the white-hot electricity coiling in the pits of her stomach, churning and churning like a wave out at sea.

"Eren," Mikasa gasps out as they rock faster and faster, clinging to one another so as not to get torn apart in the roiling waters.

"Mikasa." Her parted lips fade in and out of his vision, his lashes fluttering closed.

And together, the three words overflow from their mouths just before that churning wave hits, spilling over them: white, crashing foam upon the shore.

 


	32. Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Alex: Titan Eren doesn't have full control over his actions. Despite the times he's unintentionally tried to kill her, Mikasa refuses to keep her distance.
> 
> Requested by Anonymous: Eren refuses to see Mikasa because of guilt from hurting her and Mikasa tries to find out why he is avoiding her (fluffy ending please!)
> 
> A/N: I decided to combine these two prompts since they're both so similar. Thank you all so much for your support—I just realized that in a little over a month, it will have been a year since I started With You, I Am Home. That absolutely blows my mind!

He notices his reflection more often now: a looming figure in the window pane, a translucent image flickering off the water, his own silhouette an omnipresent shadow, always lurking, threatening to consume him.

Nights, he lays awake, shivering, and in mornings, he finds little solace with the rising sun; his room becomes a prison where he's hidden himself away in order to keep the thing inside him locked up. Eren bolts the windows and the doors, draws the shades, confines himself to the covers of his bed, and spends the days trying to convince himself that he and it are two separate entities, that this thing can be removed, carved out of his heart like an infection from a wound. He spends the nights trying to keep away the voices.

_You're one of them._

_You tried to kill her._

He tried to kill her...

And sometimes, the reflection in the mirror isn't his, but hers. Her eyes downcast and far off, the gash on her cheek the only thing glaring back, she seems so small in the mirror's frame, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, until she disappears completely, replaced by the monster's dead eyes and a mess of brown, tangled hair. She, too, is a ubiquitous specter that haunts him. He catches her out of the corner of his eye, hanging at the edge of his periphery, vanishing as soon as he turns, crying out desperate apologies.

Sometimes the real one knocks at his door, pleading to be let in, and he's overwrought with so much shame, and guilt, and fear—too much, too strong at once—that he holds his silence, quietly begging for her to go away and leave him be. Real or not real. Specter or not. Human or monster—most days he can't tell the difference. Most days, he's not even sure that there is one.

One evening, he wakes—unable to recall that he had ever fallen asleep—to a figure sitting on his bed. Eren scrambles away as soon as he sees her dark hair, that gash peering out from under her bangs.

"What are you doing here?" he says, voice and limbs shaking.

"I brought you something," Mikasa produces a loaf of bread from her dress pocket. "Please," she says, "eat."

"You need to leave."

"And you need to eat. Eren,  _please_."

"You need to leave," he repeats.

"You can't just shut me out."

"Leave!"

She flinches, and it's as if he'd slapped her. And as she draws away from him, retreating within herself, nose ducking beneath the wall of her scarf, Eren almost tells her, tells her that he didn't mean it, any of it, and that he needs her—please stay, I'm sorry that hurting you is all I can seem to do. He almost tells her. But she needs stability and safety, and with this constant shift between man and monster inside of him, he is volatile in every sense of the word. What she needs isn't him.

"I hurt you," Eren says, and he longs to reach out, erase the gash across her cheek with the sweep of his thumb. "I don't want to hurt you again."

"You won't," Mikasa says, taking his hand in hers. Eren pulls away.

"I can't control this," he whispers, wiping angrily at the tears that begin to spill.

"Eren," Mikasa speaks with care, every word soft in weight and sound as it leaves her lips. A tear of her own slides down her cheek, disappearing behind the red of her scarf. "Not being by your side hurts more than any wound," she whispers.

And this time, when she throws her arms around his neck, he doesn't flinch away. Instead he surrenders, pulling her tighter, weaving his hands in his scarf, letting the warmth of her embrace wash over him. In her arms, he is utterly and undeniably human. And the shadows in his periphery begin to fade.


	33. Fantasy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Eremika Smut Feast 2014—Prompt 9: Dreamland
> 
> Warnings: sexual content
> 
> A/N: I usually try to keep things from getting too explicit, but I think I may have passed that point a few times within these last two prompts...whoops

He's grown to hate these sorts of dreams, haunting him in waking moments at the most inconvenient of times. The worst part of it all is the vividness-how he can perceive each detail as if he'd really been there above her, hear her whimpers, her body so close he could almost lick the salt off of her skin. He's guilty of lying in bed at night, recalling the scene as he stares up at the blank ceiling…

The thought of her bare body sends him shivering, her limbs and torso lean and muscular, taut and solid juxtaposed against the soft fullness of her breasts. Her scarf discarded to the side, Eren imagines the anticipation of tracing the lines left behind from the 3DM gear with his tongue, of laying her exposed body gently down on her back, placing her leg upon his shoulder as lips and tongue venture to the quivering insides of her thighs where he laps at the skin, hot and slick with her sweetness, breath quivering at the sight of her core, before tearing himself away to deliver a searing kiss to her parted lips.

Absent-mindedly, his hand reaches south to stroke himself as he thinks of her back arching as he slips in a finger, gasping at the addition of the second, and writhing with the third, her nails dragging across his skin, her voice shaking when she pulls him down, lips against his ear.

_Please._

His breathing goes ragged as he imagines entering her, the tide-like pull of his hips, coming and going, her body, steady as his own hand, meeting and receding from him, he gasps, stifling back the moan threatening to sweep over him. Her eyes, half lidded, stay transfixed on his own as they move together. And as he feels it coming, the approaching peak, he just has enough time for those three little words to spill from lips before shuddering wave, after wave, after wave, takes him. With that, the vision shatters, his body arching, moving of its own accord; in the silent aftermath, when his eyes open, they adjust to the solitude of the darkness, and he realizes that he is alone, and that she is not there to say it back.


	34. Hush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Eremika Smut Feast 2014—Prompt 1: Hot & Bothered
> 
> A/N: I completely forgot to post this one before the last. Whoops! 
> 
> Warnings: sexual content

They know how to take their time, how to stretch out the night as they build and break together time after time, over and over again, the flame of the candle burning dimmer and dimmer as the wax pools at the base. They know how to restrain themselves to an adagio thrust and pull of hips, so that the pleasure builds gradually, growing tighter and tighter until it spills over them in wave after wave. And sometimes things get fiery. They get impatient and urgent, burning white instead of growing warmth. It's an aching desire that needs to be satisfied, a feverish hunger that needs to be quieted, and they know how to do that, too.

The coat closet is the best they can do right now, and Eren doesn't realize he's being loud until he hears a "shush" from below his waist. "We'll have to stop," Mikasa breathes, "if you can't keep quiet."

And Eren can hardly respond, because as soon as she finishes speaking, she presses her open mouth to him in a way that makes his hips buck forward, and his fingers on her shoulders draw his pleasure into her skin as he bites back the  _fuck_  that half leaves his lips.

The warmth of her mouth around him leaves him gasping, groaning out her name with every swipe of her tongue, the pressure building, building, building until pleasure spills from his body, hips contracting uncontrollably, bright white-hot in his eyes and ears, and she laps him up, adjusting to his movements.

Out of breath, his knees nearly buckle beneath him, but Mikasa holds him steady, kissing him full on the mouth. He gazes into her eyes, vision still hazy, watching as she gasps, lashes fluttering as he slips his hand beneath her waistband to the heat growing at the apex of her legs. Movements rather rough, he pivots so that she's the one pinned to the wall, her arms around his shoulders, lips pressing kisses and teeth nipping at the exposed skin of his neck. Not to be outdone, Eren moves his hand so that he touches her  _there_ , and she moans, a pure and raw cry falling from her lips in the most beautiful of ways.

"We'll have to stop," his breath is ragged in her ear as his hand flexes forward and back, coaxing her towards a white oblivion, "if you can't keep quiet."

But as she tilts her head back, choking out a sob, Eren realizes the emptiness of the ultimatum—how neither of them are capable of silence nor stopping at this point—and so he presses onwards, eager to lose himself, eager to drown in the sound of his own name on her lips.


	35. Eavesdropping

In retrospect, it's always been like this, Armin supposes: the distance between him and them, separated by a millimeter of glass, always a sort of outsider looking in. He remembers their days in Shiganshina, the three of them together at the banks of the river, poured over his parents' books, their shared dream to venture into the vast unknown. And in those moments it had felt as if the three of them were one and the same, inseparable, indistinguishable, the three of them, together, whole.

But even then, back in their Shiganshina days, when the sun crept low and it was time to go home, he saw as they went their separate ways, the two of them bickering back and forth as they went. He never bickered with either of them. Not like that.

He wouldn't call it jealousy—that's not it at all—but rather a loneliness in knowing that there exists an intimacy between the two that he will never share or fully comprehend, an intimacy born years ago in the cabin hidden in the woods that reeked of death.

It sprouted like a seed, and he is left to watch it bloom. Armin recalls the difference in their embrace upon Eren's return, the lingering gazes, and prolonged touches, knows he wasn't supposed to witness late that night when Mikasa had crept into their room, climbing into bed beside him, the foreheads of their silhouettes meeting. He doesn't know much about this foreign territory, can't decipher the meaning of their coded dialogue, but in these moments, he knows this: he's watching something unfold that's not meant to be seen by outside eyes.

These moments in which Eren runs a thumb along the scar beneath her eye, when Mikasa brushes the hair from his forehead, touch lingering just too long, are secrets whispered in a room made for two. And he is but an eavesdropper.


	36. Convince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by deathberryinbloom: Could you possibly write a wispers angsty smutty story about Mikasa and Eren finding comfort in each other after they rescue him and he struggles with what happened to his ****** and thinking he's a monster.
> 
> Warnings: sexual content
> 
> A/N: I wrote this one from Mikasa's perspective so as to keep Eren's thoughts ambiguous in order to avoid spoilers. Thanks so much for the request!

He's not the same when he returns: trapped in thought, not as whole, a part of him left behind in that crystal cavern. This darkness infiltrates their bed. Mikasa feels it in his touch when Eren presses his forehead to hers, his bare skin burning hot beneath her fingertips, his cheeks wet with tears.

"Please," he pleads, "please. I need to forget."

"You're safe," she replies, taking his face in her hands. "I won't let anything hurt you."

A shadow enters his expression, eyes opaque with clandestine distance, alerting her to her mistake. But before she can ask, he kisses her hard. It's the sort of kiss that sends her shivering, the sort of kiss where she can feel for the briefest of moments, his sorrow and pain, rooted deep inside, hungry and consuming. And she lets him. Let's him empty into her what he cannot say in words, eager to ease his burden even if she too is consumed in the process.

Laying him back down upon the bed, she pulls at the waistband at his hips before turning to herself, scarf uncoiling from her neck and set to the side. Keenly aware of his gaze on her figure, her nipples, hard, raised through the paper thin fabric of her nightgown which she pulls over her head, her body bare beneath, she climbs atop him, placing a kiss to the center of his chest as her hand reaches down to stroke him. He groans, back arching back and brow furrowing.

His warm hands reach up, running over her flat stomach, palms rough against the soft skin of her breasts. Her own hands are so much smaller than his, and she laces her fingers with his, gaze never leaving his tired eyes as she raises her hips, lowering herself onto him.

They both cry out. For a moment, Mikasa forgets the sorrow in the sheets, hips giving a tentative rise and fall, she's only reminded when she opens her eyes again, hand brushing away the tear at his cheek.

Taking the key hanging round his neck, she tugs him up as she moves against him, kissing him before taking his face in both her hands: "Please, Eren. You can talk to me."

But he shakes his head, the tears falling faster down his cheeks. "You wouldn't love me," he chokes out. "You wouldn't love me if you knew."

She assures him that's not true, that nothing in this world, nothing in this life they share, could make her love him any less, but she feels it in the tears on her chest, the way he moves—he doesn't believe her.

And so she pours herself into every roll of her hips, every searing kiss and fevered touch, tries to drown out whatever sadness plagues his heart, tries to convince him of the sentiments words failed to carry, hoping that she is solace enough in this unkind night.

And when they lie finished and spent, tangled up in one another, she still senses that he wanders far, far away.

"I love you," Mikasa whispers, pulling him closer to her chest.

His adam's apple bobs as he swallows, and when Eren speaks, his voice still carries that heaviness, that certain kind of sadness: "I love you, too."

She believes him. Of course she does. She can hear it in the coarseness of his voice, feel it in the way his embrace grows tighter around her body. She believes him. And oh, how she wishes he'd believe her, too.


	37. Insecurity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by S. M. Shoka : So, I'm totally dying to see a story where Mikasa is the jealous one. She seems so dependent on Eren that it wouldn't be impossible for her to get defensive if someone tried to "take" him away from her. Your Eren/Mikasa stories are my favorite!
> 
> A/N: Hmm I feel like I might've made this more dramatic than you intended, so apologies for that. Also, I took some liberties and applied the concept of jealousy in a more non-romantic way.

The world has a nasty habit of stealing away the people she loves. Like grasping at smoke, she watched her mother, her father, Carla Yeager, all of them, fade from vision, red tears spilling across the floor, raining from the sky, and so she clings to the few unstained memories she's been allowed to keep, and these she counts among her only true possessions. She dreams of this curse metastasizing, Eren's figure retreating away from her outstretched fingertips, his names falling from her lips like an empty echo without a response as he too evaporates into cold nothingness.

This insecurity—it isn't jealousy, but an instinctive drive to protect what should be hers, what the world has assured her will never truly belong to her, but yet she still feels entitled to keep near.

And so each time he rejects her company, when he clambered instead towards the Survey Corps, sworn to the preservation of humanity as well as the disappearance of him from her life, when he much preferred the presence of others to her—how utterly impossible it is to keep from resenting them all because of it:  _her_ , that traitorous girl, who stole him away in more ways than one, and now the lance corporal, whose trail he follows as if it's an ocean breeze; both of them have something he  _wanted_ , something he  _needed_ , something he couldn't find in her. He doesn't need her. He never has.

Her success and skill is never met by such awe and wonder; he never gives his admiration so freely to her. No matter how hard she trains, no matter the number or extent of her triumphs, it all amounts to failure without him beside her, body and soul.

She can't keep him in the end. They all belong to the whims of the universe in that sense. But each time he turns away to face a smile that isn't hers, ignores her for a light that isn't her, something burns in her chest and the pit of her stomach, and it feels as if he's never been and never will be hers.


	38. Duet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by LucastheMusician
> 
> A/N: Apologies for any glaring errors in instrument details. I did my best to research. Though I've had exposure to strings and chamber ensembles, I personally play clarinet and piano (and mediocre guitar, but that doesn't count), and have never actually played any strings.
> 
> I listened to the Pride and Prejudice (2005) soundtrack by Dario Marianelli for inspiration, specifically "A Postcard to Henry Purcell," which includes perhaps one of my favorite musical themes ever.
> 
> Modern AU

They end together on a resounding chord, melody resolving on the minor. Eren feels Armin and Mikasa's eyes on him, waiting for the release, and at the very last second, he flicks his gaze across to hers, feels his ears growing red when she doesn't look away.

"Good practice," Armin remarks after they pencil in a few notes on their individual sheet music, rhythmic cues and bowing patterns, "let's end here for today. I've got to meet up with a student."

Mikasa and Eren bid Armin goodbye, helping him gather his cello, stand, and music, and arranging the details for their next practice as they see him out the door.

"Want to play a bit more?" Mikasa asks, bringing her viola to her chin.

"In a moment," Eren replies, "go ahead and get started without me. Can I get you a coffee or tea?"

She politely declines both offers. Her mouth opens and closes as if about to say something to him, but she thinks better of it and, turning away, picking back up her viola and bow, begins to retune.

As his coffee brews, he searches for the creamer to add just a touch to his cup when she begins to play something in the next room over. He can't place the name of the melody, but he recognizes it nonetheless. Knows where it falls, knows where it dips, knows where it rises, where it breathes, a phantom whisper from his childhood, he recalls this melody wafting on the summer breeze years and years ago.

With her song comes a stream of memories: that first year of learning together, the frustration and clumsiness, the shrillness of their bows on the strings, duets together on those rainy days when it was too wet to play outside, their first kiss—young and naive, too afraid to call it anything but a mistake. But they're older now. The notes fall easier beneath their fingertips, fiddler's neck gracing the spots just below their jaws with time, they're more in tune with their instruments, with themselves, more cautious, reserved, less rash.

And when he returns to the living room, following the sound of the melody, building, and building, and building, his gaze falls on her, dark hair falling into her face, the way she tries so hard to resist the pull of the music, yet still her body betrays her, swaying, relenting to the music's tide, feeling every push and pull. And perhaps it's the music's doing, but he finds himself overcome, finds himself lost in everything that is and that has ever been her. Perhaps nothing has really changed at all.

The finale crashes over him, consumes him, ends, and in the silence that remains, he wakes to his own self-consciousness, staring at her for far too long.

"Watch your intonation on those last sustaining notes," Eren stutters from behind his mug, though her pitch, in reality, is nearly flawless.

Eyes closed, Mikasa plays the final three notes once more, intonation perfect, of course. She raises a brow to challenge him, and every instinct—his allegretto heartbeat hammering towards a finale, the heat creeping up his neck and to his cheeks—screams at him to look away, to take a step back before he loses himself entirely. And yet he can't.

"Anything else you took note of?" she asks, inclining her chin.

He thinks a while, running the piece backwards and forwards through his mind. "The cadenza," hesitation in his step, he moves beside her to see the music, careful not to touch, "play it again."

She does. And every pitch and every rhythm—she hits them all with perfect ease, fingers tactful and deliberate in every movement. The rise and fall of the melody, the climbing intervals, the descending chromatic, a forte when indicated, a pianissimo contrast when noted, she plays it perfectly, and yet not without flaw. She gives it enough to breathe but not to live, stops short of what could be.

Finishing, she turns to him for his critique, stares up at him with those night sky eyes. Eren raises his violin and bow.

"Your technique and style is perfect," he makes a few quick adjustments to tune, "but..."

He plays the cadenza back to her, lets every run and sustaining note wash over him, surrenders completely to the swell of the music, lets it draw from him all his ardor and longing, pours into it all of him.

"You withhold passion," Eren breathes, and somehow, they're unbelievably close. "Don't hold back."

And because they know, they set their instruments off safely to the side. Slow and deliberate, she brushes against him as she moves past, drawing near when she faces him. Tentatively, her fingers reach up to rest on the bow of his lips, and she kisses him there.

"Show me again," Mikasa whispers, eyes shut tight and her hands cupping his face.

And Eren obliges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I couldn't resist slipping in a double-entendre/pun here and there. I really enjoyed writing this a lot—it was a great way to keep me writing whenever DoS hit a rough patch.


	39. Unrequited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Jakesivs: I was wondering if you could do one where Jean tries to convey his feelings towards Mikasa. Not knowing that Eren and herself have already gotten smutty.
> 
> Warnings: One-sided Jeankasa
> 
> A/N: Oh gosh, poor Jean. Unrequited feelings are the worst—I felt absolutely terrible for Jean while writing this. Furthermore, I'm not very familiar with Jean's character—certainly not to the extent I am with Eren and Mikasa—this was a challenge. Good practice, I suppose, but a challenge.
> 
> I found myself in need of a break from writing smut. This was a good break.

Jean Kirschstein paces back and forth outside the cabin, the sky on the horizon beginning to take on an orange, sundown glow. Tonight is the night. In many ways, he feels like a trainee again: blissfully unaware that that a war isn't the place for these sort of things, ignorant that professions of love hold little weight when a funeral follows not the day after—somehow, he still holds on to the notion that in a war, confessions are best left confessed, and secrets better spilled out of mouths than from fatal wounds. He tells her tonight.

A full load of firewood on each of their backs, Eren and Mikasa's silhouettes break the skyline as they appear atop the slope.

 _Mikasa,_  he'd stuttered as he approached her before she left, grateful that the maintenance of her equipment preoccupied her from the pink flush branding his cheeks,  _can I talk to you—after you get back, of course?_

 _Sure_ , she'd replied,  _I'll talk to you when I get back._

Now, he watches as she returns, hair swaying and brushing past her cheeks as she walks, and if he pretends hard enough, from this distance he can make out the pale pink of her lips, the galaxy of her ebony eyes, and, heart aflutter, he breaks into a trot, heading towards the stable. He slams through the door, and then wishes he hadn't.

The two figures jump back from one another, but not fast enough to avoid Jean's witness all together. The split second he catches—Eren's hand on her waist, her chin arched up to meet his lips—stretches out in his mind, expands, filling every space and corner. And he is more surprised to find himself unsurprised by what he's just encountered. He knew. He always has, in one way or another. But it's not knowledge, but confirmation, that weighs heaviest over him.

"Yeager," Jean says, turning to the other boy. The tips of his ears burn redder than his cheeks, and there's some small satisfaction in having Eren Yeager unable to look him in the eye. "Captain Levi's been looking for you. Get your ass back to the cabin," he lies, looking to Mikasa as soon as Eren leaves.

She, too, can't seem to meet his eyes, and from this he gleans much less satisfaction. "You wanted to speak to me," she recalls.

He should leave. That's what every instinct is screaming at him to do: don't make things worse, you never needed to do this in the first place. Don't hurt yourself more than you already have. But he's not doing this to hear her say it back.

"Mikasa, I like you. And I have. For a long time."

"Jean, I—"

"I know. I know, and it's ok." He finds simple pride in that he has somehow managed to keep his heart steady—that the beat doesn't run away, that no tears prick at the corner of his eyes. Never in his life has he ever felt so calm, composed, detached. "I just needed you to hear it." And Jean takes his leave.

The rest of the evening passes just like any other, and it's as if that scene in the stable never played out at all. Save for an awkward a glance exchanged between him and Eren, the only evidence remains is his eyewitness account.

He wonders when it will begin to start hurting: if the numbness before the sting always lasts this long. It's not until late at night, when he hears the telltale pattern of her footsteps against the wood floor, the creak of a door opening down the hall, hushed and urgent whispers, the second of which he knows too well—the creak of the door as it shuts, the damnable silence that follows—when something starts to ache. He didn't say it to hear her say it back, but hearing this—their closed-door secrets whispered in moonlit shadow—hurts worse than any silence ever could.

Jean Kirschstein rolls onto his side and shuts his eyes, begging for the unkind night to engulf him in sleep.


	40. Brew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by DoDo X3: I'd like to see Senior Eren busting into Freshman Mikasa's dorm with beer or something to try to get her to loosen up XD (college AU)
> 
> A/N: Modern AU. Decided to leave a lot of details open ended in this one. I personally pictured them as still the same age, but you're free to do what you please. Also, are they friends? Dating? Just fucking? We just don't know.

It's times like these where she's especially grateful not to have a roommate. At least this time he's fully clothed.

"What do you want?" Mikasa asks. She recognized the pattern of his fist rapping on her door, hurried and urgent without any sort of discernible rhythmic pattern, had it interrupt her studying too many times not to know it within the second.

"I think the real question is," Eren replies, grin spread wide, "what do  _you_  want?" and he holds up a can of  _Rolling Rock_  in one hand, and a  _Blue Ribbon_  in the other.

"I was in the middle of studying. I've got an exam in two days," and she does her best to look as if she isn't the slightest bit relieved for this break as she lets him inside. His backpack hits the floor with the satisfying thunk of what she estimates is at least six more cans and two or three already emptied ones that attribute to his current state. He throws himself onto her bed—his shoes still on, despite the fact that she's chastised him for it countless times before. She sighs, taking a seat across from him at her desk chair.

"All the more reason to relax and blow off some steam."

"I don't think it works that way."

"Don't tell me you can't handle your alcohol. You know what, it's all right. No shame in a lightweight."

Mikasa crosses her arms with a scoff. "It's not that."

"Because, I guess, it makes sense: top of the class, good looks, track star—can't have it all, I suppose."

At that, in a flurry of movement, Mikasa snatches the  _Rolling Rock_  from the bed and pops the tab, bringing it to her lips, she takes gulp after gulp without stopping for air, slamming the can down only when she finishes emptying its contents, the aluminum crashing against the wood with a gratifying, hollow  _thunk_. Mikasa wipes her lips across her forearm, grimacing at the acrid aftertaste that lingers.

"I much prefer wine," she says.

On the bed, Eren stares, jaw dropped, and eyes wide in an expression of what could be interpreted as either intimidated horror or awe. She hopes it's both. And Mikasa can't help but laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kept this one short and sweet. (As opposed to Mikasa having it short and bitter) Thanks for the request.


	41. Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Anonymous: I want one where Eren is just completely confused about how he now sees & feels about Mikasa, or how he's now realizing that he feels about her. & I would love to see Levi saying he's acting like a moron or something.
> 
> Requested by Anonymous (Mikasa Ackerman): I would love to see a chapter where Mikasa's taken, like, instead of Eren which is the usual. And you have Levi giving him permission to f*** s*** up to save his badass warrior girlfriend!
> 
> A/N: Combined two requests since they were so similar. I also took a pretty loose interpretation of your prompts, so I hope you don't mind. I had a really hard time with this one for some reason. Here's my attempt. (. _. ;)
> 
> Levi's POV

He's seen this before: the mirrored version illuminated in lantern light of Eren kneeling beside Mikasa as the rickety wagon rolls over bump and pothole, the sleeping figure of the latter oblivious to the tormented expression, the pain in the eyes of the former who holds their hand tight, too scared to look away or let go for the smallest moment lest they disappear.

Levi sighs. "Staring at her isn't going to help anything. Go to sleep."

"Yes, sir," Eren replies, voice distant, words hollow and uncomprehending, he makes no move to to follow Levi's order, remains statuesque.

Deplorable. Sights like these churn his stomach, bring bile to the back of his throat. Funeral pyres burn much too bright to ever forget. The pair of tragic lovers, so certain that they shall endure: he knows how it ends. He knows how it always ends.

He turns to him. "Lovers don't survive in this fucked up place," he says, "You should know that by now." He wants to tell him that he's being foolish, that the both of them are, that a stone heart and cut ties is the surest way to survive. He wants to tell him that it's best this way, that there's no need to die more than once in this lifetime.

Eren's face darkens. He looks as if he's about to cry. "It's not like that."

But the way he looks at her is a dangerous way to look, and the way he holds her hand, strokes softly her callused and hardened skin, is a dangerous way to touch. And Levi replies: "You're an idiot," because even if Eren doesn't, Levi knows a lie when he hears one.


	42. Late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by AeardolHira2078: "What about if Mikasa skips her period and is like "well fuck."
> 
> A/N: It was refreshing writing this. I feel like I haven't written angst in a while (which is a completely invalidated feeling, to be honest). Thanks for the request!

It's been four days. She's late. By all accounts, it doesn't make any sense. They're so careful: she tracks her cycle meticulously, knows what days they should, knows what days they shouldn't, takes an herbal tea that's supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening. It's been four days. It's been four days of waiting for that rose to bloom, of sneaking off to the bathroom praying to find relief staining the front of her underwear, of waking up in the middle of the night to find her thighs soaked in damning sweat rather than a calming sea of red.

Of course, it's  _only_  been four days. This isn't the end all be all. And yet she still finds herself subconsciously running her hands over the hollow cradle between her hips, can almost feel her stomach swell beneath her fingers, heavy and full. No thought has ever left her feeling so empty.

Because his world is no place for a child. She's seen it. She's been there before—begging on the streets, stealing just enough to keep her stomach quiet enough to sleep, the lice, the fleas, those leering men with soulless eyes who lick their lips in a hunger not satisfied by soup or bread. The monsters inside the walls are sometimes just as dangerous, just as merciless, as the ones outside. These dangers she could hardly protect herself from, and she cannot guarantee her survival even to herself. These walls already harbor too many orphans. What have they done?

That night, Mikasa lies awake in bed when Eren slips in beside her, but she pulls away when he presses a kiss to her neck, flinches when his palm presses against her belly.

"Not tonight," she says, unable to meet his gaze.

"Is everything ok?"

She nods her head. "I'm just tired."

He tells her he understands.

It's not that she doesn't love him. That's not it at all. She dreams about it: a quiet, peaceful life with him, of traveling the world together, of growing old together, of starting a family together. She dreams of him kissing the swollen curve of her stomach, of holding a daughter in her arms, she dreams of hearing his whispered voice sing soft lullabies at three in the morning, of the three of them lying on their backs under summer night skies, naming every constellation and pointing out shooting stars. all of it with him; it will always be with him. But this isn't the time. This isn't the place. Not for a child, and not for her dreams. This will never be the place, and that's what stings the most. Tonight, Mikasa falls asleep facing the wall, lying on the farthest edge of the bed, the furthest away from him she can possibly be.

When Mikasa rises, she finds a perfect rose blossomed on the linen sheets. She kisses the top of Eren's nose; he sleeps calm and unknowing beside her. A tear rolls down her cheek, drops onto the pillow, followed by another, and then another. Mikasa cries in relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: On a related note, I just wanted to take a moment to talk unapologetically about periods. There are actually quite a few reasons aside from pregnancy that can cause a missed or late cycle: changes in weight, excessive exercising (basically anything that's a change to your usual schedule), stress, illness, as well as many others. It's also worth noting that sometimes your cycle doesn't become regular until years after starting. (Funny enough, the "Abstinence Only" program taught at my school failed to educate us about any of these things)
> 
> Of course, if you're still worried that some other issue or pregnancy may be the cause, pick up a test at your local drugstore, or at a Planned Parenthood center, or contact your physician as sometimes Thyroid problems or cysts may be the culprits.


	43. Argument

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Mixitup999: Eren was always kind of a d*** to Mikasa when she wanted to help, she finally snaps and pins him down and kisses him.

Their arguments are always so incredibly juvenile. And, most unsurprisingly, they're usually incited by him. He can't even remember the exact reason for this particular fight, the original spark that ignited this conflict lost in a muddle of shouting and retorts, scowls and dagger comment—the yelling began after simulation, a product of her intervention on the field and his wounded pride, but perhaps this all began before, in her passive-aggressive comment during lunch, in the venomous side-eye he threw back; all Eren knows is that he's right, she's wrong, he's entitled to his agitation and hostility, while her frustration and belligerence are completely unjustified. She's the arrogant one—not him. She's the one who needs to drop it.

"Don't turn me into something I'm not," Mikasa says, her usually soft voice uncommonly sharp calls behind him; her steps nip the back of his heels as he storms down the corridor. "I'm only trying to help. I've only ever tried up help. You know that more than anyone else," she says, reaching out to grab his sleeve, "Hey, just wait a moment—"

He snatches her hand just as her fingers graze his arm, his hold on her wrist tighter than he intended, but he's much too embarrassed to admit to his mistake, much too proud to loosen his grip. And because he can't find it in himself to tell her how this anger, this irritation, it isn't directed at her, but at himself, at his uselessness, at his insignificance, he looms over her, glaring at her down the bridge of his nose, the cast of his shadow so heavy it threatens to drag her to the floor, before saying, "Don't touch me."

The words barely leave his mouth before both his back and head crash against the wall, his wrist twisted above him, and her forearm against his chest. There's a fire blazing in her eyes, its seldom seen flame reminding him that she is and always has been fully capable of overpowering him, that here, before him, is, perhaps, humanity's strongest. "Don't talk to me that way," Mikasa says, voice firm yet soft. "Yes, I shouldn't have stepped in. Yes, I should've trusted you to take care of it on your own. Stop being such an ass."

He almost spits back a retort, brushes this off as yet another one of her ploys to make him feel powerless, but then he spots a tear in the corner of her eye, the smallest drop of water a rippling reminder that even humanity's strongest is only human, that she, too, is capable of being hurt. And no matter how mad he is, no matter how wrong or right, hurting her was never what he wanted.

Their arguments, juvenile, volatile, never find a resolution of any sort, always fizzle out without verbal acknowledgment. He could bear his silence this time again, leave things as he usually does, act as if nothing's happened tomorrow morning—but he doesn't. Not this time.

"I fucked up," he says,"I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm just—I'm sorry." Regret and shame wash over his cheeks and he can't bring himself to look at her, but he feels her hand leave his wrist, the weight of her forearm relieved from his chest.

And he wants to ask her if she'll forgive him, eventually. Not just for today, but for all the other times he might've made her cry but didn't see her tears. He wants to ask if she'll ever fully forgive him, if there'll ever come a day when she won't need to anymore.

So when she kisses him, presses a gentle peck to his lips, flushing on the retreat, he can't understand it. He cannot understand how someone could forgive and love a person like him so unconditionally, so readily, and how a person like him could be so undeserving.


	44. Cramps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Henta1Rampag3: Mikasa having period cramps and trying to pretend like she's not in pain when she obviously is and Eren comforting her oh-so-sweetly
> 
> A/N: Of course, being on your period is nothing to be ashamed of, but I think we all get sort of embarrassed of it from time to time. c:

It's only five days, Mikasa tells herself. You can handle five days. But when she forces herself up, her head goes dizzy, and her abdomen throbs, and she can't help but think about how five days could be much more tolerable if best spent in bed. Oh well. She motivates herself with the promise that exercise, though cumbersome in this monthly state, will help.

She gets a long run in just as the sun rises—a nice and steady five miles among the countryside surrounding the cabin—and though the pain subsides, the discomfort persists; she can't place whether the wetness between her thighs is sweat, blood, or a mixture of both, and after her shower, clad only in her sports bra and underwear, the cramps back again, Mikasa collapses back into bed, ready for sleep to overtake her.

But, alas, there comes a knock on the door. Eren's head peeks in: "You up?" seeing her state of undress he quickly averts his eyes, "Sorry," he says.

Mikasa throws on a shirt, more for his sake than hers—she couldn't care less—before beckoning him in. Face tomato red, he still refuses to look at her fully, taking an awkward seat at the edge of her bed, and Mikasa can't help but shrink away from him, hugging her knees to her chest as if the pain in her abdomen and all the rest of it were like an old rug she could roll up and store away. Self conscious, she wonders if he can smell it on her, the metallic iron red between her legs, if he can see it on the flush of her face, read the braille line of pimples dotting her jaw. Has her body betrayed her to him yet? Revealed this weakness, this shame?

"Are you feeling all right?" he asks.

"I'm fine," she says. He doesn't look convinced.

She fears he'll call her out, force her to elaborate, expose the embarrassing truth that not even she is immune to this monthly process, but he doesn't say a word. Eren doesn't say a word, settles himself across her bed, face scrunched in a frown as he refuses to make eye contact with her, his face flushed red, he pats the empty space formed by the curve of his body. Hesitantly, Mikasa fills it, his chin falling into place at the crook of his shoulder. And his arms around her, his warm breath in his ear, the pain in her abdomen begins to subside. Maybe five days won't be so horrible after all.


	45. Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Eremika Fluff Week 2015—Prompt: Weak Spot
> 
> Requested by acd5553787: Eren gets captured by the enemy and hurt pretty badly. When they return to camp Mikasa takes care of him and Eren tries to hide what happens so she doesn't feel bad. She finds out and blames herself and Eren somehow manages to make her feel better.
> 
> A/N: I'm not sure if this constitutes as fluff, but here it is anyways, I suppose. I had a really fun time writing this—I've always had a predisposition towards the whole "After-Action Patch-Up"/"Florence Nightingale Effect" tropes.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine. Honest," and Eren has to look away from the intensensity of her gaze, her eyes scanning him over, searching, searching, for anything amiss. "You worry too much," he says.

She chews on her bottom lip. "I should've been there," Mikasa replies quietly.

"This isn't your fault," he speaks hurriedly, almost losing control of his breathing. "And I'm back now. That's what matters. Now go get some sleep," he runs a thumb across the shadow beneath her eye, "I know you're tired."

Finally relenting, Mikasa says her goodnights, exiting the tent with one final glance over her shoulder. And Eren doesn't even realize that she'd been holding his hand until she lets go, skin aching in the absence of her touch. The beginnings of a headache begin to twist their way into his temples now that she's gone—not that he's surprised in the slightest. It's always been so hard to lie to her.

He's regrown limbs multiple times in the same span of hours. Bruises, cuts, they're never a prolonged problem. But something isn't right. He's not healing as well as he should be. They recovered him over seven hours ago, and still, he can hardly breath; the pain in his chest feels as if someone squeezes his torso in their fist, feels as if someone drives a knife into his side. If he's lucky, it's probably only a broken rib or two. A few more if he's not. But he will survive—he'll see a medic in the morning if need be. But he will heal, eventually. That's why there's no reason to let her know. No reason to worry her.

Carefully, Eren slips out of his pants, fabric pooling around his ankles, grimacing as he bends down to pick them up and fold them neatly. Next comes his shirt. He pulls it over his head with his left arm, his good arm, raising his right shoulder tentatively to undress himself fully. Yet even though he moves slowly, carefully, he missteps, stretching something too far the wrong way, the knife of pain twisting between his ribs. Eren gasps for breath, air wheezing in and out of his lungs. And when he opens his eyes, there she is, standing in the doorway.

"I forgot my scarf," is all she says, gesturing to the ribbon of red draped across the chair.

He can't read her expression, can only feel her sight locked onto the the purple bruises that span across his torso like dark, spilled ink across a page. She has caught him at the worst time: in his weakness and in his lie. Without a sound, she takes slow steps towards him until they stand face to face. Like a child caught red-handed, he cannot look her in the eye.

"It's nothing. It's just a bruise. It's not a big deal—" Eren cries out, eyes filling with tears as sharp pain shoots through him when her hand presses lightly upon the skin.

"You told me you weren't hurt," she says quietly, and her composure cracks with a hiccuped sigh, the kind of sigh that accompanies the admission of helplessness. And there's a reason why he didn't tell her. She's much too eager to condemn herself, much too eager to assume guilt in lieu of innocence. He can't let himself be the cause of that—can't let her live that way.

"I didn't want you to worry," he says.

But she shakes her head, finger tracing a stinging outline around the bruises. He watches her in the flickering candlelight, obliges her as she wraps in gauze him lightly, touch delicate as they pass over his chest, and then she grabs ice from the bucket in the corner, presses the bundle into his hand without looking him in the eyes.

Looking over her work, she turns to leave, but Eren grabs a hold of her hand. "Don't go," he says, "Please. Stay with me."

And she does. Of course she does. She helps him into bed, shedding everything but her blouse in the corner of the room and blowing out the candle before slipping in on his left side.

They do not say goodnight, and do not fall straight to sleep, but lie there in the heavy silence, counting breaths instead of sheep on their opposite sides of the bed. And when Mikasa finally speaks, she talks so softly, voice but a whisper, Eren almost doesn't hear her.

"You're always breaking on me," he can hear the tears on her voice, every word heavy with self-depreciation, sorrow. "I just wish I knew a way," she says, "to put you back together."

And in moments like these where she's too far deep, too resolved on a guilty verdict, there is nothing he can say to convince her otherwise, to assuage this poison of the mind that roots itself in something so much deeper than he could ever truly know. Eren wishes he could apologize for his fragility, wishes he could tell her not to shatter with him, too. He aches to tell her that she is the only thing in this world keeping him together, keeping him sane and whole. If only she knew. If only she could believe him.

His chest aches with a different sort of pain, and he offers her the little comfort he knows how, hand moving beneath the covers, searching until it finds her own. Their fingers lace together. His thumb strokes the skin of her hand as he listens to her breath relax and slow. And even after she falls asleep, Eren doesn't let go.


	46. Detention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Crown: Can you do something with them as perhaps, thirteen-year-olds, at the academy; something ridiculously adorable?
> 
> A/N: I apologise for my absence! Please forgive me! Also, hopefully this constitutes as cute. I did my best to channel my inner middle schooler. Writing this was a nice, light-hearted, purge from Degrees of Sleeplessness. A much needed break.

Of course he's the one who got caught. Would fate have it any other way? And now here he is scrubbing the floors of the classroom even though they're clearly still clean from when he scrubbed them as punishment last week. When this is all over he's gonna punch Jean in the face. Break his nose, or something.

It all started with a tap on the shoulder:

"Pssst! Oi! Eren! Pass this to Mikasa," between her middle and index finger, Ymir offered him a small piece of paper, neatly creased and folded. Over her shoulder, Jean glared at him venomously, skin flushed red and face drawn up into a scowl that did little to hide the urgency and apprehension in his eyes. In retrospect, he should've thought more of that expression.

Instead, he took the slip of paper from Ymir without half a second thought, and moved to pass it to Mikasa. He should've torn it up when he had the chance.

"Yeager!" Shardis's voice boomed, eyes bulging out of his head. "Front and center. There is no note passing in my class."

"But it's not—"

"Now would you like to read your note to the class, or shall I?" Shardis doesn't exactly give him the option, snatching the piece of paper from his hands before barking at Eren to turn and face his peers.

In the back of the room, Jean went stark white, Armin—ever prone to secondhand embarrassment—sunk down in his chair. Mikasa, ever so slightly and ever poised, raised an eyebrow. Only Ymir, all but openly cackling, seemed to be enjoying herself. And at that moment, Eren had the terribly disillusioned, terribly hopeful, notion that things couldn't get much worse.

Shardis made a show of opening the note, clearing his throat. Eren should have ran. He should've made a go for the door. But then Shardis began to read: "' _Dearest Mikasa_ —'"

Eren's blood froze over. From across the room, he and Jean locked eyes. And in that moment, he should've thrown a glare or a snarl—anything hostile and intimidating—but instead, the two boys stared at one another in abject terror.

"' _Roses are red, violets are blue, but none can compare to a flower like you_.'"

Aside from a few sniggers, and Ymir's roaring laughter, the class remains dead silent. Unamused and unresponsive, the only indication the other kids showed of vague acknowledgement was a few raised eyebrows and quizzically angled faces. Pointing fingers and jeering laughter almost seemed like the better alternative, for at least he could get angry at that sort of behavior. This—there was no response to respond to! Eren stole a glance at Mikasa. Her eyes looked past him, and her expression remained stoic and statuesque. Should he have expected anything less?

"Absolutely atrocious, Yeager," Shardis spat as he sent Eren away. "If there weren't a food shortage, I would vomit. Detention after class for disrupting class and for your lack of literary talent."

"Yes, sir."

His eyes were bullets, and Jean's face, a brilliant red, the target. Throughout the remainder of the lecture, Eren tapped his index finger on the wood of his desk, tempo measured, morose, he listened to the  _thunk_  of his finger upon the desk, imagined the sound of bullets hitting flesh, bullets fired from his gun barrel stare.

And that's how he ended up here: on his hands and knees scrubbing the classroom floor, the blackboard behind him as close to sparkling as a blackboard could get. The visualization of his fist sinking into Jean's gut keeps him in a state of fuming contentment, a sort of malicious enjoyment he once saw in a tabby as it pranced after a bird with a broken wing. He's going to give Jean a good beating, accept his canonization for exercising mercy and not killing him, and then avoid Mikasa for a good week or so. This is perhaps the most infuriating circumstance of this whole mess—guilt for a crime he didn't commit, shame from a confession that didn't belong to him.

Behind him, the classroom door clicks open.

"Almost finished, sir," Eren says without looking up. And then he freezes at the timbre of a female voice.

"I thought you could use some help," Mikasa says, grabbing a cloth and bending down next to him.

"You don't have to do this," he grumbles back. "It's my punishment, not yours."

"I don't mind."

Settling back on his knees, Eren wrings the fabric of the rag in his hands, and, the words rattling in his stomach like boiling water in a kettle, he bursts: "You know I didn't write that note, don't you?"

And when she turns and smiles that soft smile of hers to him, there's a twinge of something he can't decipher on her face, but will one day look back on—when the both of them are older, less fumbling, less unknown to the other in these sorts of ways—and remember it as forlorn, disguised hurt.

"I know. I know you didn't write it."

He's hit with a state of extreme lucidity, one of those instances where you're looking upon a tree, and suddenly you can pick out the veins in each leaf, suddenly your eyes follow each individual path of the interweaving tributaries and estuaries etched in the bark. Eren picks out the blush of her cheeks, very much like a rose, notices the pink of her lips, pressed together like a tulip yet to bloom. He thinks about that letter, about how he didn't write it, and for a fraction of a moment—a fraction so brief there's no doubt it's a fluke—he almost wishes he did.


	47. Oblivion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by AeardolHira2078: I've noticed there's a lack of Eren-being-shocked-situations on fanfic. I just love the idea of Mikasa kissing him on surprise and his completely stunned reaction.
> 
> A/N: It's rather short, and I don't know if I managed to capture the "shock" factor, but I still really like how this turned out.

When it happens, it reminds him of a dream: the way time slows to half the rate, feeling so detached it's as if he watches the scene unfold from a third perspective as she leans in, presses her lips to his. Instinctively he closes his eyes, and yet he can still feel her there, senses the furrow of her brow, the light flush painted across her moonbeam cheeks. He is the blind man who has found his way home in the dark.

And then she's not there anymore against his lips. She's pulling back, like waves receding from the shore. She doesn't look him in the eye, but he wants her to, because maybe then he would understand. He doesn't comprehend it, doesn't have the mental capacity to—not now, with his head spinning and his heart stumbling and tripping over itself.

He opens his mouth to speak—to say anything, really—but his throat is hollow, empty of words. His fingers linger on his parted lips as if to hold the sensation of her touch in place, and the first stream of coherent thought enters his mind: she was here. She was here, kiss hesitant and soft, here before this, here after, lingering. And how did he never notice this before?

He still can't speak. Funny how a single split second can render him utterly mute. And as Mikasa turns away, Eren reaches out, his lips finding hers, he surrenders his mind once again to the bliss of oblivion.


	48. Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Anonymous: Can you make a chapter about the day after Maybe Chapter 17? I think it would be interesting!
> 
> Warnings: mentions of sexual themes
> 
> A/N: Once again, this is a continuation of Chapter 17: Maybe

Levi slams the fifth on the table in front of them, and the sound of the bottle against the wood is so loud, it sends their headaches throbbing. "I said,  _clean_  the cellar, but apparently you miserable pieces of shit took it upon yourselves to clean  _out_  the cellar," Levi spits. "Laps. Around the property. Don't stop until you collapse. And maybe then I'll have decided what I want to do with you brats.

"Yes, sir," they mumble in unison.

Running while hungover could possibly be the worst sentence imaginable: head pounding, stomach churning—he knows he'd feel infinitely better if he just threw it all up. But Mikasa's still within hearing distance, and he still has some semblance of pride. His stomach flips again, but this time, it's not the hangover's fault. You'd think with a hangover this bad, he'd have a harder time remembering the events of yesterday. But that doesn't seem to be the case. They were far too uncoordinated to do it—though they sure got close. He remembers that  _very_  clearly: neither of them possessing the balance to do the required, settling instead for the next best thing. That's another thing he remembers rather vividly—the salty sheen of the soft skin of her inner thighs, her distinct taste…

Eren stumbles, nearly falling to the ground, and only then does he notice that he'd been closing his eyes. Mikasa looks over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow.

"I'm fine," he mutters. And he feels slightly better about himself at the sight of her green pallor.

_Maybe I like you, too._

Out of everything that happened yesterday—the sloppy drunk kisses, everything else—he finds himself most embarrassed by the maybes, the confessionals, and verbal commitment. And they don't usually acknowledge these skin to skin escapades (in fact, they never do) but this is different. Somehow, this territory is worlds away.

Eren supposes the only upside to running this punishment with a hangover, is that he's far more likely to collapse sooner than later. He hears footsteps behind him, realizing that Mikasa's lapped him already, he picks up the pace, careful to keep a safe distance behind her.

Seven kilometers later, he finally ends up puking up last night, retching into a nearby, unfortunate bush. He expected relief, but running on an empty stomach feels just as terrible, and he finds his cheek against the ground after he hits kilometer ten. Only ten kilometers. Pathetic. Rolling onto his back, the high noon sun burns hot on his face.  _This is how I die: covered in sweat and vomit,_  he thinks to himself in a moment of melodrama.  _At least I got laid...sort of_. He decides he'll lay here like corn set out to dry in the sun, and Levi can decide what to do with his husk of a corpse, when a shadow obscures the glaring light. Eren opens one eye, and then closes it

"You're cheating," he says as he feels Mikasa lie down beside him. "Lying down's not the same as collapsing."

"Are you going to tell on me?"

Eren sighs. "No."

He tries his best to ignore her, to resume his plan of lying her and letting Levi decide what to do with his dried corn husk corpse, but her presence disturbs him, it reminds him too much of the moments of intimacy they try so hard to avoid: the silent aftermath spent staring up at the ceiling as they come to realize the vulnerability of their nakedness in the absence of pleasure.

"What now?" Mikasa asks.

Eren turns to this body lying next to his, this other source of heat burning, in many ways, so much hotter, so much more intense, than the high noon sun.  _Maybe I like you, too._ And it's the heat—it must be the heat, this disorienting glare in his eyes-that causes him to blurt out, "Did you mean it? What you said yesterday—is it true?"

Mikasa turns inwards to face him, her hand beckoning him closer without meeting his curious gaze. She whispers three words-the same as last night-in his ear. This time, no maybes, no kindas, no sortas, no uncertainty attached, just a single, definitive, statement.

The high noon sun shines above their heads, beating relentlessly down upon the earth. Eren ventures a hand out between them, tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. And then he whispers those same three words back.


	49. Profession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by awwyeaheremika: Modern AU, and Mikasa works as a prostitute in the red light district, and Eren is a journalist of some sort.
> 
> A/N: Of course, I in no way condone human trafficking, child prostitution, or prostitutional exploitation, and one of my biggest concerns and challenges about this prompt was portraying legal prostitution, and the legal sex industry as a whole, in all of its complexity. I urge you all to check out the blog behindtheredlightdistrict at tumblr or blogspot to hear from a woman who actually works in the Red Light district in Amsterdam. Coming into this prompt, I had a very different perception of sex workers and the sex industry than the reality of at least this portion of it. This little fic of mine only scratches the surface of it all, and I'm still not certain on my opinions and thoughts of this all, which is why I think it imperative that you do your own research and learn a bit for yourself. Thanks to awwyeaheremika for providing the website!
> 
> Modern AU.

Eren tries to remain inconspicuous about examining the girl across the table. She's not what he expects her to be: wide eyes with only a touch of mascara, clad in a navy, collared dress that falls to her knees, with modest, black heels to match. His first thought is how she reminds him of a manic pixie dream girl straight out of an indie flick with that doe-eyed look and tattered copy of a small collection of poems sticking out of her carpet bag purse, the sort of girl who frequents cozy coffee shops and flea markets. Second, Eren remembers how that's not the narrative his editor wants to hear, how that's not victimizing enough, not condemning enough, doesn't make a villain of the sex industry. And they need a villain.

"I'm not in costume, right now," she says with a knowing smile. "I actually just finished with class for the day."

"You're a student?"

She nods her head. "A double major in Biology and Classics over at the city university."

"Oh," is all he says, which, as he realizes the very moment he says it, is a very stupid response to such a surprising piece of information for anyone, let alone a journalist. This is his  _profession_  for god's sake. Steeping in his own incompetence, Eren concentrates on the distance between his cup of coffee, and her mug of tea, jotting this insignificant little detail down on his pad of paper just to appear as if he's doing something. Eren clears his throat. "Shall we get started?" he asks.

Her eyebrows fly up, disappearing behind her bangs. "We haven't already?"

He pulls himself together rather quickly, forcing himself to engage in what he hopes comes off as a fluid conversation. But his apprehension quickly dissipates. She excels in making conversation—an asset she developed with the job, she assures him, apparently sex work really builds communication skills—carries it effortlessly, almost artfully. She tells him how sex work earns a paycheck that pays the bills and then some, how she'll be able to finance grad school almost entirely on her own. She explains how she only really sleeps with a handful of her clients, how the majority of them come in either failing to perform, or out of curiosity and then only to chat, or for smaller—though sometimes stranger—less taxing sexual favors, explains how sex, to her, has never really been an emotionally intimate act.

Ironically, she comes off incredibly normal—charming, even. His editor won't like that. And yet, Eren doesn't care. He doesn't care that this girl isn't the trashy whore the paper wants, doesn't care that she completely refutes the societal expectation. She's real, completely genuine. When did the papers sever their ties with the truth?

 


	50. Wager

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Jakesivs: How about one where Mikasa is a cop and is extremely honest and strict with her work. Until certain badboy, Eren, unintentionally steals her heart.
> 
> A/N: Requests have been CLOSED until I finish writing Degrees of Sleeplessness—I'll keep you posted. I'm just finishing up the requests I got a while back. Apologies to anyone who missed the cutoff without knowing.
> 
> Also, thanks for the prompt, I know it's not exactly what you asked for, and more of just a quick taste, but I feel like the entirety of your prompt would take a lot more than a quick drabble to cover.
> 
> Modern AU.

"Fuck." Eren slams his forehead to the wheel at the sight of the red and blue lights flashing behind him as he waits in defeat on the side of the road. It's one in the morning—don't these cops have anything better to do than ride his ass? For Christ's sake, he'd just gotten a parking ticket two weeks ago!

The patrol car door slams shut, and with a groan Eren rolls down his window.

"Morning, Officer," he says, hand massaging his temples.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?" the officer asks, and Eren's head snaps to attention at the timbre of a female voice. Well damn. Obsidian eyes and dark hair pulled back into a braid, she's rather pretty, and Eren finds his jaw agape. "Fifteen over the residential speed limit," she answers for him, voice and expression unchanging.

His mind is too stunned to fully process the words that tumble out of his mouth. "Wow," he says, but then he recovers: "Looks like I won't be using my tits to get out of this one, huh?—unless, of course, you swing that way." She doesn't look impressed.

"I'm going to have to write you a ticket."

"Come on, you don't have to do that."

"Do what? My  _job_?"

He stares at her, wondering what her story is. She's petite for a woman, let alone a cop, and she certainly doesn't  _look_  like she's meant to be an officer. In fact, she reminds him of a small children playing pretend: oversized stethoscope around their necks, swimming in their mother's scrubs. He doesn't doubt that she's capable, yet somehow, she seems out of place. And he's been staring too long, because she squirms beneath his gaze.

"Listen," he says, "what's your name?"

She shuffles from foot to foot. "Ackerman," she finally says.

Your name's  _Ackerman?"_

" _Officer_  Ackerman."

"You're not going to give me a first name?"

"No, but I'll need yours to start writing this ticket."

Eren drums his fingers on the wheel, chewing his bottom lip. He looks up. "Rock paper scissors," he says.

"What?"

"One throw. If I win, you let me off with a warning. If I lose, you give me a ticket. Deal?"

It's so hard to read her expression, and he catches her fingers wandering to her radio. Good god, he's going to need a beer after all of this. "Fine," she replies.

They throw. She chooses rock, he chooses paper. Eren doesn't even bother hiding his grin. "Once more?" he asks, "I buy you a drink if I win?"

She crosses her arms. "Get out of here before I change my mind about that ticket."

Eren shrugs. "It was worth a shot. You have a nice day, Officer," he salutes her before driving off. And perhaps it's a trick of the light, but in his rearview mirror, he thinks he catches her blushing.

 


	51. Runaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Trick on AO3: Eren getting stuck in Titan form with Mikasa around sounds interesting. I feel a bonding kind of vibe, especially since Eren's titan can't talk.
> 
> A/N: Writing comedic cutesy stuff is hard. Like, it's hard enough writing it, and executing it and stuff, but oh my god, the process is made all the more difficult when you don't have a great sense of humor to start with (points at self). I can't say I'm entirely satisfied with this one.
> 
> Prompts are still closed.

"What are we testing for again?" Armin asks as the three of them stand in Eren's gigantic shadow. They crane their necks to stare at Eren's looming, titan figure, that stares back at them with curious green eyes.

Giddy, Hange only manages a shrug before running off. "Just observational study," she says, circling Eren's titan and jotting down notes on posture and muscle form. The sun hits the lens of her glasses just right, glinting and shining. "All for the good of science of course."

"This will needlessly tire Eren out," Mikasa says, arms crossed and lips pulled down in the slightest of frowns. "Surely, Captain Levi wouldn't approve."

"Yes, how convenient that he isn't here today," Hange muses. "Hey! Eren!" she calls up. "Can you hear me in there?" But the beast doesn't respond. It shows no sign of comprehension, and instead, stands there dumbly, staring at the trio with a vacant expression. "Eren?"

"Eren!" Armin calls up, "It's me! Armin!"

At that, the titan emits a low rumble, and blinks curiously before yawning.

"Eren, do you understand what we're saying?" Armin asks, "Eren?"

But the titan quickly loses interests, his eyes following a bird that flies past, and for a short while, he's lost to them. His attention snaps back at the sound of Mikasa's voice.

"Eren! You have to listen to Armin and Hange," she says.

Eren crouches down, and slowly, slowly, he raises a single finger, and brings it to Mikasa, pointing to her chest. He makes another low, rumbling sound, mouth moving, this time, as if trying to say something. And then, he slowly opens his hand, dropping it to the ground before Mikasa's feet to invite her onto his palm. Standing in the center of his hand, Mikasa looks incredibly tiny, her small figure juxtaposed against his titan's pure massiveness.

"Eren? Do you understand what we're saying?" Mikasa says as Eren brings her before his face. "Eren?" she peers into those emerald eyes, trying to discover the boy she knows between a mess of brown hair. "What are you doing?" Slowly, the titan rises to its feet, cradling Mikasa in both its hands. Eren takes one look at Hange and Armin, and then he breaks into a sprint in the opposite direction.

"Hey!"

"Eren! Come back!"

"Quick! Grab the horses! Let's go!"

It takes Armin and Hange all of two hours to find Eren and Mikasa—they ride out sixteen miles only to find them two miles away from camp on the return trip.

Eren's titan leans against an abandoned barn house that threatens to collapse, snoring away. There's a moment of panic when they're unable to locate Mikasa at first—Did he leave her somewhere? Step on her? Oh  _god_ he can't have eaten her, could he?—but they spot her a few moments later, curled up and napping in the nest of Eren's brown hair. Armin and Hange dismount their horses, and the ground rumbles ever so slightly beneath their feet with Eren's breath.

"We should probably get Eren out of there," Armin says with a sigh. "I hate to wake him." The both of them look so peaceful, curled up in sleep. They always were a bit of a troublesome pair.

"I hate to wake him, too." Hange says. "He looks kind of cute, curled up like that. Like some overgrown puppy." There comes the sound of swords being drawn, and Armin can only watch as Hange moves towards the sleeping pair, blades drawn.


	52. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well this took me a lot longer than it should've. But it's written, and that's what counts, I suppose. Wrote this to write myself out of the rut I'm in with DoS right now. I counted it all up, and I've written 57 papers in my first year of uni, which is why I've been AWOL these past few months, and why it took me so long even now that I'm back. Hopefully this smut makes up for it. Prompts are closed.
> 
> Warnings: swearing, sexual content

Returning to base is always such a surreal experience. The fortress remains unchanged, the vegetation clings to the walls, impenetrable in some areas. Years seem to pass in the span of days on the battlefield, yet time stands still here. Every time Mikasa comes back to base, she wonders if perhaps she's just woken up from a very long dream.

"Welcome back, Ackerman," a few familiar voices call out as she passes a group of soldiers on her way back from the stables. No one she's close with—the majority of her comrades from the old 104th squad are probably still out on their missions. The only ones probably already back are Levi and Eren. That feeling deep in her lower stomach lurches. Green eyes, hot breath, sweat-slicked skin, that last night before she left...she pushes it all away, buries whatever this feeling is beneath cold composure. She and Eren, they are childhood friends. All that last night was was the volatile combination of frustrated hunger, convenience, and the slightest attraction, nothing more. Meant nothing then, is nothing now. She could care less if she ran into him right now.

"Have you seen the Captain?" Mikasa asks a passing private.

"Just left for business in town an hour ago. He'll be back by noon tomorrow."

Informed of an open bed in the east wing, Mikasa heads for her quarters with intention of turning in early and taking advantage of the Captain's absence.

It's a small room: more a closet than a room with two beds on either side of a window, someone's things already stowed beneath the one on the right-hand side. It's two steps from the door to the foot of the bed, three between each of the mattresses. Dropping her bag beside the other bed and unstraps herself from uniform. She throws open the window when someone enters the room.

" _Mikasa_?"

Her stomach does a flips at the sound of his voice, stares at the four-story drop outside the window and deeply regrets removing her 3DM gear and cutting herself off from her only means of escape. She suddenly becomes aware of the poor state of her hair, how long it's been since she's looked in a mirror, resents herself for caring in the first place. She scrambles to gather her composure, and it's like trying to catch a bar of soap that slips from her hands.

"Eren," she turns to face him when she's confident that her face betrays nothing, gleaning small satisfaction when she finds that his face hides nothing.

He doesn't look too terribly different since they last saw each other—not in any identifiable way, at least—but he does seem to have changed. He looks older somehow, eyes sharper, jaw more defined. Fresh from the shower, his hair is still damp and his skin is still dewy beneath his thin shirt. Mikas thinks again of that last night they shared, of how he'd rocked against her with such urgency, how she'd sobbed out his name, how before that she didn't think herself an individual capable of any sort of passion. And on long nights during the mission, she used to think of him, his body and hers…she wonders if he ever did the same.

"Your hair's gotten longer," Mikasa says.

Eren runs his fingers through his bangs as if he's forgotten that he'd been wearing it. "Three months is a long time, I guess." And this room is so small, and they're standing so close, and his unwavering eyes are so bright she can't look away. She doesn't even realize that she's holding her breath.

The kiss is like a clap of thunder, instantaneous and charged. Their bodies press hard against each other, and her hands are tangled in his hair, and his arms pull her in tight, breathless, hungry. Mikasa feels a surge of warmth in her chest. It feels like she's walking through a dream. For what could be more dizzying, more mind-numbingly overwhelming than the feeling that there is someone out there who wants to kiss you just as much as you want to kiss them.

They pull away to catch their breath, this time regard each other with less guarded eyes. Mikasa can feel her cheeks burning pink, his stiffness pressed flush against her hips. She chews her bottom lip, eyes sweeping over the musculature of his rising and falling chest. And there's a moment of hesitance between them, both unsure of how to proceed, both searching the eyes of one another for remnants of what was in the air between them on that very last night.

Eren reaches up, framing the side of her face with his hand, and she leans into his touch. His lips, parted, chin inching towards her, Mikasa readies herself for his kiss, but he moves past her mouth, lips grazing the shell of her ear.

"Mikasa," he whispers. And she shudders. "Welcome back." And then he's lapping and nipping at her ear, and she feels and hears every hot breath, and they're falling back into one of the beds, and she's wrestling the shirt off his shoulders at the same time he fumbles with the buttons of her blouse, the clasp of her bra.

The way they kiss is so frantic, as if the first they've seen of each other in three months is the last they'll see of each other for good. Mikasa revels in the weight of him above her, their hips bucking in sync, hungry for the friction, fabric against fabric, heat against heat.

" _Mikasa_ ," Eren hisses against her lips, and she moans as he thrusts, hard, against her.

"I want you so bad," her voice wavers, her tongue lapping alongside his, and she slips her hand beneath the waistline of his pants, fingers curling around his hardened length.

He throws his head back, groaning. "Take my pants off," he demands. Her hand begins to move up and down his dick, thumb grazing the tip. " _Fuck_ , take my pants off."

Mikasa almost dares a smile of satisfaction, and obliging him, she undoes the clasp, the zipper, slides his pants and his boxers down his hips, shimmies off her own pants and underwear as he untangles himself from the legs.

Both of them naked, they take a moment, drinking in the sight of their bodies: the elegant slope of her shoulders and taut muscle of her abdomen, the beautiful strength of her thighs; the sharp definition of his hips and broadness of his back, the flash of his tongue wetting his lips as he slides his palms up her stomach to caress her smooth pale breasts. Mikasa arches her back, pressing herself closer to his touch, parting her lips to receive his kiss. And his mouth is there, hot and wet against hers, heavy sighs and exhalations, her body shuddering when she feels his tongue by her ear, his teeth at her shoulder, their hips rolling against each other with want. _You're beautiful_ , she thinks she hears him whispering into the crook of her neck where his teeth scrape against her skin, _You're so fucking beautiful_.

Eren groans when she reaches down to stroke his length, sitting back on his knees head thrown back as her hand works him, up and down. "Wait," he says, stopping her hand. He presses a kiss to her fingers. "Not yet." From between her parted thighs, Mikasa watches as he settles before her, his hands pulling her towards him by the backs of her knees with a tug, he kisses her skin, and then runs his tongue slowly, slowly, from her knee along the soft skin of her inner thighs until he's inches away from her center. Mikasa holds her breath.

Green eyes flick, for a moment, to catch hers, and then he's there. A cry breaks from Mikasa's lips and her hips jerk forward on their own accord. His lips against her clit and his tongue slipping into her, his thumbs steady her shaking thighs, hold her so tight he could bruise.

And _god_ is this not what she dreamed of for three long months? His hands, hot and burning, his tongue sliding across her skin, hands tangled in his dark brown hair as she comes undone with his fingers inside her, inching her closer and closer to her finish—as she calls out his name with his lips upon her wet, slick heat.

"Eren!" Mikasa gasps, pulling him up towards her for a burning kiss. "Please, _please_."

They both cry out when he finally enters her, and her arms clutching Eren's back, Mikasa only then realizes that her nails dig into his skin. Motionless, they catch their breath. Parted lips, unwavering gazes, a bead of sweat slides down the bridge of Eren's nose, dropping onto Mikasa's cheek like a tear. With his thumb, he brushes it away. Slowly, leaning up towards him, Mikasa's lips lightly brush his ear, and on his back, her hands move—one to tangle in his hair, the other to rest on his hip. And when she finally speaks, her voice wavers, on the verge of breaking: "Move."

He begins to rock against her—slow at first to gauge her reaction—before settling into a rhythm. The bed springs creak with every roll of his hips, and low moans slip from his lips as they move together, ebbing and flowing, building to that crashing break. Sweat collects at the small of his back, the backs of her knees, and the weight of him moving above her—surely, over these past three months he's thought about this too? Surely he's thought about her just like this, wanted her just like this. Her legs wrap around him to bring him closer, deeper, and gasping mouths find each other amidst shuddering breath.

"Fuck. I'm so close," Eren hisses. Before she can even worry that she's not there yet, he reaches down with a hand, touching her _there_ , and her hips begin to jerk wildly.

And then they're there. He spills into her only after she hits her peak and she comes, swell after swell, the softest of cries leaving her lips followed by his low, strained moan.

Mikasa feels him roll off of her, and through half-lidded eyes, she vaguely senses him above her, lingering for a moment before kissing her on the mouth, parted lips too busy regaining their breath to kiss him back. The room is so quiet, filled only with the sound of their breathing, the bed completely soaked beneath them. Her entire body, drenched in sweat, shivers when the wind drafts through the open window, and she welcomes the warm arms that wrap around her, pulling her close against him.

"You gonna leave this time too?" he murmurs into her shoulder, and the smell of him is everywhere—on her, in this bed, in the air. Their clothes rest scattered on the floor, and what a beautiful mess it is. She half mourns that they'll have to tidy up in the morning.

"No," Mikasa says. She turns to face him, and there are those green eyes again, bright, unwavering. She runs her knuckles across his lips and he kisses her there, and there will be time tomorrow morning to wonder what this all means—to question, to second guess. But right now, she is here. In his arms, the sun going down, her body pressed against his. She is here. "No, I think I'll stay here."


	53. long distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU. This was originally supposed to turn into smut. And then it didn’t. Just a short piece to get back into the swing of things.

"D'you like what I've done to the place?" Eren's grin fills the screen of Mikasa's phone before he flips the camera to show her his newly painted and refurbished bedroom—he and Armin had moved into a new apartment just two days ago.

Lying on her back, Mikasa squints at the image on her phone. My god. He's gone and painted the walls a bright and loud green and painted the accent wall he was talking about a canary yellow. This has to be colorblindness. Surely the love of her life has better taste than this.

"So," Eren says, returning to the front facing camera, "what do you think?"

Mikasa wracks her brain for something to say. Something neutral and inoffensive. Something that will gently hint at a redo of the paint job. "It looks like Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird doing it," she blurts out.

Eren recoils. "That was disgusting."

"So are those colors."

"Shut up. They're great colors."

"Has Armin seen this yet? There's no way he would've let this happen if he had known."

"You know what? If you hate it so much, why don't you make the eight-hour drive over here right now and redo it yourself!" Eren says.

"I would if I could," Mikasa replies. And then she sighs, rolling onto her side so that her phone rests horizontally on the bed. "I miss you."

"I miss you too." His voice softens. "It's been a long two months."

"One more to go," she muses. She misses the way he smells, misses how warm he gets when he sleeps.

"Oh hey, by the way," Eren says, and even on the screen of her phone Mikasa can see the gleam in his eyes. "I got you something." With a flourish of his hand, he displays an empty bed frame.

"A new bed frame," Mikasa observes. "Upgrading from the box spring on the floor?"

"Ah, but you're missing the most important part," Eren grins. He makes a show of patting the headboard and then leaning in close, when he speaks again his voice drops to that low and husky tone that sends a warm shiver down her stomach. "Now you have something to hold onto when we see each other again."

Mikasa feels herself flush bright red. The part of her brain still caught up in her earlier Sesame Street reference whispers that right now, she could pass for Elmo.

And with a final wink, Eren logs off.


	54. composure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: One last quickie before I head back to school. Currently trying to get back to my old writing style.
> 
> Rating: M

Surely it had only been a dream. Hot breath in the stillness of the night, the rustle of sheets like a moth's paper thin wings, the ghost of rough hands worshipping the ascent up her thighs—a dream. Vivid flashes that begin to fade as soon as they are recalled, just a deep feeling of memory left in the soft morning light.

Mikasa wakes, putting her fingers to her lips as if the remnants of last night were pressed to her skin. Eyes still closed, she feels his presence opposite hers on the bed, his measured breath, each rise and fall, the heat of his body beneath the blankets. And somehow she feels as if she knows the weight of him moving above her, the heat of his body setting her skin on fire, waking in the middle of the night to find their bodies swept to the center of the bed, her nose pressed against his, her hands pulled close to her chest yet still somehow reaching. She's dreamt this dream before.

Opening her eyes, Mikasa takes in the boy sharing her bed: his mess of brown hair, the harsh line of his jaw, his troubled brow. Awake or dreaming, there's always something, someone, that he's fighting. The both of them seem so small—even in this tiny closet they've been shoved into for the night, their feet at the door, and a wall at both their heads. They were assigned the only coed sleeping arrangement because they were supposed to have been able to "handle it." Whatever that meant. But a warmth spreads across her lower belly as she thinks about Eren, his fingers burning circles into her inner thighs, Eren, tongue coaxing her spine into a delicate arch. Eren. Whatever "handle it" means, Mikasa doubts she's accomplishing it.

And then the rest of the world begins to wake. Murmurs of voices float through the walls as their comrades emerge from their rooms and head down to the dining hall. Footprints sound on the floorboards before their door, and Eren's eyes flutter open. Green pupils meet gray, and without a word spoken, both of their faces flush bright red. It only takes a split second of shared silence to come to a mutual understanding: somehow the both of them are not the same as they were the night before.

And for the first time that morning Mikasa wonders if her dream really wasn't really a dream after all.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I do accept prompts if you'd like, so feel free to leave one in the reviews, or PM me, or leave me one on tumblr (I'm under the same handle). Thanks for reading!


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